Four young individuals, from Marseille, were sentenced to up to four years in prison for criminal conspiracy. With weapons, balaclavas and a jerrycan of gasoline, they set fire to the Capital (Mauguio) on July 16, 2023 while customers were inside and one of them had reoffended with Opium ( Lattes), July 23.
“They had the mission to set fire to a bar that was supposed to be closed, but there were customers and staff there, they threatened them with a weapon saying not to move, they set the fire, they didn’t owed their survival only to an employee who managed to open the door” storms a civil party before the Montpellier judicial court on January 17.
“We put a gun to his head.”
“My client says that a gun was put to her head, a fire was set and she thought she was going to die, she was pregnant, she lost her baby” denounces another lawyer.
In the box, the four young defendants, including Laura L., a young woman 8 months pregnant, do not flinch. They ended up admitting in police custody that they had led an expedition from Marseille to burn down the shisha bar “la Capitale” in Mauguio, on July 16, 2024. And for one of them, trying to make it even in the chicha bar-restaurant l’Opium, in Lattes, a week later.
The reason? “The same manager was targeted” recalls the prosecutor, knowing that the two establishments had already been targeted by attempted fires.
Organized crime and control of shishas
The war for the control of shishas against a backdrop of organized crime in drug trafficking and money laundering is hitting Hérault from Marseille where those involved have especially not wanted to reveal the identity of the sponsor, nicknamed ” blood”, the only element of the procedure.
But it took months of investigation and surveillance by the gendarmes to elucidate the case after having exploited a weapon found calcined at the scene of the disaster in Mauguio, a mobile phone forgotten in Lattes and having put themselves on the trail of the fifth seriously injured individual.
-The team left Marseille with two Renault Clios, including one stolen, with gloves, balaclavas, weapons and a fuel jerrycan. At the Capital, two individuals entered, one threatened the people present with a pistol while the other spilled the fuel. But after the ignition, he was burned, almost 50% of his body, he was able to flee with his accomplices who took him to the hospital in Marseille, before having, beforehand, burned the stolen Clio. He is still seriously injured.
Up to seven years in prison required
Who are his four accomplices? Lucie L. therefore, 20 years old, who drove the stolen Clio and bought the gasoline, young unemployed woman, who accepted this criminal association for €500, claiming that she did not know what they planned to do . Because, she affirmed, she did not know the others, except her brother Valentin L., already placed under judicial supervision two weeks before the events, who accompanied the expedition… The prosecution requested 4 years in prison against them, the court lowered it to 2 years in prison each.
The third, Anis S., 18, received three years of detention where the prosecution had requested double: he participated by setting the fire, which he ended up admitting. Barely aged, he was released from prison at the end of June…
Finally, Aness B., 20 years old, received the heaviest sentence: 4 years of incarceration for having participated in the two acts, fleeing with an accomplice never identified, on July 23, after having doused him with gasoline. Opium which set off the alarm.
“Judicial sanctions have no impact”
He claimed to have received €1,000 after being recruited on the Signal messaging service. He has four convictions on his record, the last of which was in mid-June 2024, a month before the events.
“The legal sanctions have no impact on them! And he, his accomplice, is 50% burned, he is not traumatized and he does it again 10 days later!” denounced the prosecution, requesting, in vain, 8 years in prison, including one year suspended.
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