His gentle face appears on the screen installed in the room of the Assize Court.
This Tuesday, from Cape Verde where he now lives with his mother, Gabriel
(the first name has been changed)
, 17, delivers the story of his terrifying kidnapping, on the first day of the trial of the one who has it, with restraint. kidnapped, tied up and sprayed with gasoline one evening in April 2015, in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine).
Moved probably by a kind of amorous spite.
Antonio F., 59, wanted to win back the heart of Gabriel's mother.
She did not want to engage in a long-term relationship with this man, whom she had known twenty-six earlier and found in 2013. He did not accept it.
"He tied my feet and my hands with tape"
Before the breakup, Antonio, a specialized educator, was "very well with my son", testified Gabriel's mother, also through a screen.
This April 29, 2015, as he did regularly, the teenager, then 13 years old, joined Antonio.
This helped him at the time to progress in French and made him play sports.
“We had a good relationship, he treated me very well all the time,” begins the young man.
He picked me up by car, we stopped to do some shopping, I even remember what he bought.
Afterwards, at his place, we did a dictation.
He corrected the dictation and we started playing sports.
He told me he had a new technique for doing sit-ups.
It was there that he tied my feet and hands with scotch tape and put it on my mouth as well.
Antonio would have even added: "You will see, it will be funny.
"
Tied up, immobilized on the sofa, Gabriel understands that it is no longer a session of abs, but contains his fear.
"I had to think, that I think about what I was going to do", explains the young man, surprisingly mature.
"He had sprayed me with gasoline"
At the same time, her mother is worried.
By phone, she had just declined Antonio's invitation to dinner.
He had hung up abruptly.
Which was not in the habits of this man she had never seen angry before.
When Gabriel's mother arrives at the foot of the apartment building where Antonio lives on Queen's Road, the situation has degenerated for good.
From the window of his apartment on the fourth floor, Antonio demands that Gabriel's mother come up.
She refuses.
He reappears at the window with a can of gasoline.
“And I believe a lighter,” said the 57-year-old woman.
Inside, the teenager tries to stay focused.
"He made me go to the window, he had sprayed me with gasoline, he wanted me to tell my mother to come up but I winked at him so that she would not come, says the young man.
I understood his plan.
I think he didn't mean to hurt me at first but afterwards when he saw the police coming he said:
Things have changed.
And he put gasoline all over the apartment, on him, on me, on my head.
And he said
I'm sorry
.
"
"He wanted to kill us, me and my mother"
On the spot, the police commander, arrived fifteen minutes after the alert, understands that waiting for the RAID to resolve the situation is more than risky.
“I went to the landing.
He said he wanted to blow everything up.
And we smelled a strong smell of oil.
Two minutes later, there was smoke.
"
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The police break down the door.
Antonio, whose clothes are burning, takes refuge in his room.
Little Gabriel, who tried to escape his uncontrollable jailer by punching him, fell to the ground.
His clothes are on fire too.
He manages to free himself from his bonds and save himself.
"He wanted to kill me and my mother," said the teenager, whose body will remain marked with burns.
If he has not yet been questioned on the facts, the accused has repeated it since his arrest: he did not want the teenager's death.
But he is on trial for attempted murder.
His trial is being held until Thursday.