Several hundred people participated on Friday in Romans-sur-Isère (Drôme) in a white march in tribute to Zakaria, a 15-year-old teenager killed on April 9 while interposing in an altercation.
“Zakaria our thoughts are with you”: the banner is held by around thirty young people and family members. She opened the procession, which was joined by 400 to 500 people, in the heart of the Monnaie district, where the events took place.
“He intervened without violence”
Many mothers, who came to support, hide their tears behind dark glasses. On their white t-shirt, an image of young Zakaria, an apprentice who would celebrate his 16th birthday in a few weeks.
At the end of the march, several people, including his boss and a neighborhood educator, described the teenager's portrait: "dynamic", "hardworking", "funny", "caring".
“We are making a caricature of the endemic violence in these neighborhoods, when it is false. And Zakaria embodies it, he intervened without violence. This is the counter-example of what could have been said,” underlined Me Guillaume Fort, the lawyer for Zakaria’s father who joined as a civil party.
The investigation led to four indictments.
A “violent and filmed dispute”
According to the first elements of the investigation, a 59-year-old father, from a residential area of Romans, would have organized a “punitive expedition” against a miner from La Monnaie, after “a violent and filmed dispute” which had involved his youngest son, also a minor.
The father then went to La Monnaie with this 15-year-old son and his 26-year-old elder. They would have found the young person from the neighborhood involved according to them in the dispute, which generated an “altercation with blows”, according to the prosecution.
It was then that Zakaria, a simple spectator, tried to intervene. The eldest son allegedly struck him a blow, fatally injuring him, according to the same source.
The eldest son is notably prosecuted for “aggravated murder” and the youngest for “premeditated willful violence”; the father for “complicity”. A fourth suspect, a 27-year-old son-in-law, is accused of helping the family flee.
VIDEO. Death of Zakaria in Romans-sur-Isère: “It’s another hard blow for the city” deplores the mayor
The La Monnaie district had already been in the spotlight following the death of Thomas, a 16-year-old high school student who was fatally injured in November at the end of a ball, in the neighboring village of Crépol. Some of those indicted in this drama come from the city of La Monnaie.