«When I heard the doorbell, I thought it was in my dream, I looked at my cell phone, it was 3:01 a.m.,” said the victim. Unfortunately for the young woman, now 27 years old, what she thought was a dream will turn into a nightmare. Since this Tuesday, November 12, her former neighbor Hamza Charfeddine (read elsewhere), who lived like her in a residence on rue Nungesser-et-Coli in Rochefort, has been on trial for trying to kill her on the night of Tuesday, February 23, 2021 .
The thirty-year-old risks up to thirty years of criminal imprisonment. The court will have to decide whether the discernment of the latter, suffering from schizophrenia and bipolarity, was abolished, impaired or not at all, in which case he would be entirely responsible.
“You must be wrong”
Before Hamza Charfeddine came to ring her doorbell that dramatic night in February 2021, she had encountered him a few times. “I had only lived here for a month,” she says. I went to see him to tell him that I had a young child. [15 mois]that it might make a little noise. » That's all until Tuesday, February 23, when he rang her doorbell. “I went to say: 'You must be mistaken, I am alone with my son'. »
The knocking at the door stops for about twenty minutes. During this time, she contacted a friend, without success. His mother, ditto. His brother too. The latter, fortunately, recalls: “we told him that we were arriving with my father-in-law”, testifies the latter, 19 years old at the time of the events.
During this time, the young woman is on the line with her mother: “he was banging harder and harder on the door and insulting me: 'open your door, bitch'. I was afraid for my son, afraid for myself, afraid of losing my life. » In total incomprehension. The door explodes under the repeated blows of his neighbor, in a daze: “he was holding a knife, he crossed the corridor and he jumped on me. » Afterwards, it's complete darkness. Not the slightest memory. She will come to her senses in the fire truck.
Chases
The story continues with her brother and father-in-law, who rushed to her house. “We go up the stairs and there we come across the attacker, with a kitchen knife, who tells us ‘come here, you bastards’ and he starts chasing us up the stairs,” says his brother . The duo manages to hide outside the building for a few seconds before going back up.
“We arrived at his apartment, there was blood everywhere,” recalls his father-in-law, who then decided to take care of the little boy, speckled with blood but unharmed. It was a horror scene. » His brother takes care of his sister. No sign of the neighbor. Ten minutes have not passed when he comes back and punches the forty-year-old in the back of the head. His stepson fights back and stabs him in the shoulder blade. He starts chasing him up the stairs again. “He didn’t follow me outside,” the young man concluded. The accused will be arrested at his home immediately. “I often wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t come,” confides the father-in-law.
Blade in the neck
The young mother has severe injuries, which the forensic expert detailed this Tuesday. “I noted seven wounds which could correspond to at least four blows,” notes the practitioner. In particular a blow to the head with the blade penetrating the first vertebra. “If it had gone further, it would hit the spinal cord, causing paralysis. » Another stab wound to the ribcage could have been fatal, “without the rapid intervention of the emergency services”.
This Wednesday, the day will be devoted to the hearing of expert psychologists and psychiatrists, who examined the accused.
Who is the accused?
Hamza Charfeddine, 31, is the 4th of six children. He grew up in El Hamma in Tunisia in a “rather well-off and loving” family. Around 16, he was sent to France, to Rochefort, where his older brother lived and worked. He followed training in catering which he did not complete, before doing temporary work. He has three mentions on his record for driving without a license and use of narcotics (cannabis). It was from 2017 that his psychiatric disorders appeared and disrupted the lives of those close to him, who were worried about his attacks of delirium during which he heard voices. “Whether at the police station or at the psychiatric hospital, I was told: as long as he doesn't do anything stupid, we can't do anything for him,” his big brother testified this Tuesday at the bar. At the time of the events, he had “abandoned” his treatment.
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