Since this morning, the children's court has been trying four minors aged 15 to 16, prosecuted for violence leading to death. For several days, at the end of September 2023, they launched projectiles on the Port dual carriageway, ending up causing the death of a mother.
Horror on the road. On September 30, 2023, a “game” as stupid as it was dangerous caused the death of a 25-year-old mother, a passenger in a BMW hit by a stone thrown from the top of a bridge crossing the Port dual carriageway.
Hit in the face, in front of her husband who was at the wheel, Kenya succumbed to her injuries ten days later at the Saint-Pierre University Hospital. The emotion was immense, after the tragic death of this mother of a little boy aged barely two and a half years old at the time of the events. One year after the tragedy, four minors must answer in court today.
The children's court, ruling on criminal matters, judges this Wednesday, November 20, four young people from Porto aged 14 to 15 years old at the time of the facts, described as gang violence leading to death.
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©Arnaud Connen de Kerilis
The hearing takes place behind closed doors, in the presence of the defendants, their lawyers and around ten civil parties. Indeed, in addition to the couple who were in the BMW, several other vehicles had been the target of projectiles on the road that evening, as well as during the preceding days.
This is what the investigation opened by the Port police officers and those of the STPJ criminal brigade made it possible to discover in the days following the events, when several handrails and complaints from motorists traveling in the Porto city and on the RN1 reported stones and other objects being thrown towards their vehicles.
On September 30, around 8:30 p.m., witnesses saw several young people traveling on the Sacré-Coeur interchange bridge, pushing a supermarket shopping cart filled with rocks and various objects that some threw onto the road. The cart itself was tipped over the guardrail.
In the days that followed, five suspects were apprehended and taken into custody. Four were finally presented to an investigating judge and indicted for violence resulting in death. Two of them were placed in pre-trial detention.
“They were throwing the pebbles without thinking about the consequences, without thinking about what was happening down there.”
Me Georges-André Hoarau, defense lawyer
The defense lawyers emphasize the immaturity and inconsistency of the accused at the time of the facts. “My client didn't understand what had happened. It was difficult to make him realize it. They were throwing the pebbles without thinking about the consequences, without thinking about what was happening down there”explains President Georges-André Hoarau.
Due to the excuse of being a minority, they face half of the sentence of 20 years of criminal imprisonment provided for by the penal code for these acts of violence in a meeting leading to death.
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