Accused of shaking a baby and causing his death by causing a fatal subdural hematoma, Mohamed F. remained on his line of defense.
The one he has observed since the start of his trial on Friday.
After four days of trial and several hours of close questioning on the facts this Wednesday afternoon, he again assured that he had only played with little Ilyes, remained in his care, not to have shaken him to the during this evening of January 21, 2018, in Arnouville.
Ilyes was then 5 and a half months old.
The next morning, he was transferred urgently to Necker before dying on March 30.
The diagnosis of the shaken baby was quickly established, the young man taken into custody.
“I could see he wasn't like he used to be.
He is limp and tired ”
“I played with him.
We laughed.
Quite simply.
Like all fathers who play with their child.
Throwing, turning… ”, explains the accused to the Assize Court, passing very quickly on the precise gestures he made with this son whom he loved as his own, he stressed.
“We'll have to describe to us more precisely what you did with Ilyes.
This is the crux of our problem, ”insists the president.
“We played, at one point he didn't feel well.
I could see he wasn't like he used to be.
He is limp and tired.
"
He was more talkative with his relatives, who pressed him with questions at the Necker hospital, where the little boy will be operated.
It evokes in particular a fall and a glide of the small one to the aunt of Ilyes.
“I never said that, reacts the accused in court.
This is his opinion.
I didn't talk much with her.
For what he said to other people, he no longer remembers.
SMS that leave little room for doubt
"How could you have forgotten what you said to these people?"
If there is a time when we have to tell the truth about what happened, it is today, ”continues the president of the Assize Court.
"You are the only one to have experienced the scene which brought Ilyes to the hospital with a massive subdural hematoma which led to his death ..."
But Mohamed F. will not say more before being confronted with the text messages exchanged with Ilyes' mother while the baby is between life and death at Necker hospital.
Messages in the form of a confession.
"I know you did this on purpose," she wrote then.
“You will pay.
Your entourage too.
The accused replies: "Well, I made a handicapped person.
I was jealous that you love your son more than myself.
He adds: "I didn't want it to happen that far.
Here.
I was not the same.
I had lost my mind.
"
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In front of the court, he admits having written these words but evokes "an error in the text".
“I would never do that.
I have always been in the game, ”he repeats.
"The problem is that the game does not correspond to the medical findings," said the president.
“The hematoma in the brain cannot have been caused by playing with the child.
There are no signs of beatings.
Only you know what happened.
He died!
"
During his custody, he confessed
It is then a question of the last testimony of the accused, at his initiative, in police custody, in front of the gendarmes.
Confessions to say the least clear, which echoed in the courtroom like an echo to his SMS: “I didn't want that to happen.
I panicked.
I shook.
I lost my mind.
I was scared.
"
He explains about the baby, in this PV: “He kept crying.
I held him by the arms.
At one point, the head fell back.
What took me to do that, myself I ask myself the question.
I was in too much panic.
I'm sick of my life.
I took it out on him.
"
Confronted with this testimony, he explains his confession with fear: “I said that to protect my family.
There were threats.
I said this out of fear of reprisal.
It has always been a game. I have never been violent.
"
Disappointment for the civil party
Me Yves Dupuis, the lawyer for the civil party, gets up.
"All eyes are on you," he said to the accused, showing the relatives of the young mother, who "wiped out from her life" the accused, his family, his friend, gathered on the benches of the room of the courthouse of Pontoise, who did not take their eyes off the accused in his explanations, for several hours, finally waiting to know what really took place in the apartment of Arnouville, why a small child left.
"And we will end this hearing, continues the lawyer, with the explanation according to which you played and laughed ..." The trial ends this Thursday.