Back round, face in hands, Alain Laprie learned this Friday, February 21, shortly before 6 p.m., that he would sleep in prison. After just over three hours of deliberation, the jurors of the Charente Assize Court in Angoulême decided to condemn this 64-year-old man on appeal to 15 years in prison for the murder of his aunt, Marie Cescon, in 2004 in Pompignac, near Bordeaux (Gironde).
The jurors followed the requisitions of the Advocate General who this Friday morning had claimed 15 years in prison, recalling the bundle of elements that pointed to this "favorite nephew" of Marie Cescon, 88 years old, found with his head split and asphyxiated by smoke from an arson fire started in his house.
"What is there to flesh out the prosecution's thesis?"
In defense, Me Benoît Ducos-Ader had long warned the jurors against the possibility of a miscarriage of justice in the event of conviction. "If you have a tiny doubt, you must answer no to the question of guilt," he had called, questioning: "What is there to flesh out the thesis of the prosecution?" ".
At the announcement of the verdict, which comes after sixteen years of legal proceedings, a dismissal at a first trial and the acquittal of the accused at first instance, the youngest son of Alain Laprie collapsed. While on the bench of the civil party, Jean-Claude, Sylvie, Joëlle and Jeanine Dalcin, also nephews of the victim, remained impassive.
