A man wanted after fleeing his trial in Besançon in March 2023, and suspected of having since killed a father with a stray bullet near a deal point in Dijon, has been arrested in Morocco, a- we learned Monday from legal sources.
Sahbi El Asraoui, 26, was arrested Friday in Marrakech and an extradition procedure is underway, Dijon prosecutor Olivier Caracotch told AFP.
“Interpol had issued a red notice” concerning this man, arrested in possession of a false passport and targeted by four French arrest warrants, Besançon prosecutor Étienne Manteaux said at a press conference. His arrest abroad is “a real satisfaction, justice takes its time, but it always ends up getting there,” he said.
Le Bisontin had been actively sought since March 8, 2023 after fleeing during the deliberation of his trial before the Besançon criminal court.
Prosecuted for having seriously injured a thirty-year-old with five bullets in December 2020 in the sensitive Planoise district of Besançon, he was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment for “aggravated violence”. Sahbi El Asraoui had targeted this man by mistake when he wanted to target a drug trafficker with whom he had a dispute, according to the Besançon prosecutor’s office. “Since then, he has continued to commit misdeeds while he was wanted,” noted Étienne Manteaux.
-In addition to a first arrest warrant issued by the Bisontine court, Mr. El Asraoui is the subject of three other arrest warrants for facts still under investigation.
Since his flight, he has been suspected of having participated in Kalashnikov shots which left two people injured, also in Planoise, in June 2023, and in violence against two men (one severely beaten, the other violently hit with a car) in front of a nightclub near Besançon in November 2023.
Sahbi El Asraoui was also wanted for the murder in Dijon, on the night of November 25 to 26, 2023, of a 55-year-old father, killed by a stray bullet. A refugee who had fled the conflict in Kosovo, the fifty-year-old slept with his family in his apartment located just above a deal point which had been targeted by a burst of heavy weapons of around sixty bullets. One of them ricocheted and hit the father in his bed, killing him instantly.
Shortly after the incident, the shooters’ car, a stolen vehicle, was found, making it possible to make the link with another vehicle which had been intercepted at the border with Spain, with its two occupants. The latter were indicted, with four alleged accomplices, but Sahbi El Asraoui, whose DNA had been found in one of the vehicles, remained untraceable.
