The trial of the alleged attacker of Mamoudou Barry, a Guinean researcher fatally beaten in 2019 in Rouen, began this Wednesday before the criminal court of Seine-Maritime.
But the heavy pathology of the accused complicates the procedure.
Interned in a psychiatric hospital in a unit for difficult patients since his arrest, the 32-year-old man acknowledged the facts with a "yes", staring into space, from the accused's box, supervised by two caregivers.
This individual suffering from schizophrenia with aggressive behavioral disorders had arrived a little earlier with his hands tied along his body before the caregivers removed his ties.
But the too open mouth of this man under reinforced curatorship since 2013 has often made his answers incomprehensible, to the point that the lawyers for the civil party have given up asking him questions.
"I've never seen it like today," assured his curator at the helm.
“A medical certificate of August 22 says that he is fit to appear subject to very heavy medicalization,” added defense lawyer Herveline Demerville.
Racist Thoughts
His client appears until Friday to have on July 19, 2019 in Canteleu, in the suburbs of Rouen, "voluntarily committed violence which led, without intention of giving it, to the death" of Mamoudou Barry, who died the next day.
He is also being prosecuted for having committed these facts “because of the victim's membership or non-membership” of a “so-called determined race or religion”.
According to the prosecution, the victim's wife and mother of their then two-year-old child indeed "consistently maintained that the accused had made racist remarks before attacking her husband".
"You blacks, you are sons of bitches, we are going to fuck you tonight", had launched, according to the young widow, present at the trial, the Frenchman of Turkish origin, referring to the Senegal / Algeria Cup final of African football nations that was being played that evening.
The driver of the bus in which the aggressor had boarded after the events also indicated that he had heard him say "son of a bitch of a Catholic or a Christian".
The International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra) and the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (Mrap) filed civil suits.
Engage the responsibility of the State?
At the helm, the parents of the alleged attacker assured that they had never heard their son make racist remarks.
On the other hand, his mother confirmed to be “afraid” of his “violence” and his “illness”, even if he is “calm” since he resumed his treatment, which he had stopped at the time of the facts.
She added that he used drugs.
“He changed his behavior when his father left the house, he was hitting his sisters,” she explained.
“His dad was hitting on me.
He was violent several times in front of “his son, she added.
What the father will confirm at the bar.
The accused also suffered from the death of his little brother when he was 4 years old, according to his mother.
“I warned the guardianship several times upstream to tell them that my son was in crisis, that he was no longer taking his treatment”, said this little woman, “I warned the police (…) They left me like this…”
The lawyer for the victim's family Antoine Vey asked for an explanation.
"At the hospital level, there were perhaps not enough hospitalization places," said the curator.
"We may consider the possibility of incurring the responsibility of the State because of a lack of follow-up", warned this lawyer for the civil parties.
The accused whose record shows three convictions, faces twenty years in prison at this trial, which is to continue until Friday.
The violent aggression of Mamoudou Barry had provoked strong reactions in France and Guinea.
