Eighteen years of criminal imprisonment were required Friday, January 15 against three men accused of torturing in January 2016 the widow of the founder of the Redoubt at her home in Hem in the North to extort the contents of her safe from her in vain.
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Fanny Pollet, then aged 86, suffered from the onset of Alzheimer's.
She died six months later.
"
They were attacking a woman they knew to be fragile and rich
", launched the general counsel Juliette Lebon, after four days of debates in front of the Assize Court of the North, underlining the "
savagery
" of the three men.
On January 4, 2016 around 10:30 p.m., Rachid Belkhir and Aniss Tajer, then aged 29 and 21 respectively and already convicted, broke into the victim's home.
They tie up her home help and put Madame Pollet through an ordeal, disoriented, so that she gives them the keys: taser shots, mock drowning in her bathtub, blows to the head.
During this time, they speak on the phone on several occasions with Yacine Kherzane, then aged 30, never convicted and described by the prosecution as the instigator of this "
homejacking
", who
keeps
watch in a car outside. .
For lack of keys, the duo set off again around 3 a.m. stealing one of the old lady's cars, with 250 euros in cash, a bracelet and wedding rings, and joined Kherzane.
They will be betrayed by their phones.
"
She must have been terrified
", launched Me Olivier Péan de Ponfilly, lawyer for children and a grandson of Fanny Pollet, after entering the court in terror by miming the scene.
"
Get up, get up, the trunk, the trunk!"
He yelled, before tapping on a desk with a hairbrush to simulate the beatings she received.
"
Of course she died because of that
", he assured, portraying a "
great lady
", "
your grandmother
", who led a "
life of toil, not a life of luxury or ostentation
”.
Prostrated in the box, the three accused apologized to the Pollet family and the caregiver, also a civil party.
"
He participated in something monstrous, but it is not a monster,
" pleaded Me Xavier Raes, lawyer for Aniss Tajer.
“
Mr. Belkhir, he's a follower, stupid (...) He needs money, we offer him a plan, we tell him there is half a million euros in a safe, he says to himself ' 'It can help me'
", pleaded Me Gaël Zouaoui stressing that"
he confessed, wants and will pay.
"
Kherzane helped, but is certainly not the instigator
", repeated Me Chérifa Benmouffok, while the investigation could not determine if there was a sponsor above him or not.