The Bordeaux Criminal Court began Thursday afternoon September 2 to delve into the trafficking case that catches up with a suspected drug lord, Moufide Bouchibi, a second day of trial in an electric atmosphere like the day before.
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On March 10, 2011, the driver of a Mercedes driving from Spain ended his race in the ditch while trying to escape a control, in Tarn-et-Garonne.
Inside, the gendarmes discovered 743.6 kg of cannabis.
Ten years later, the 41-year-old Franco-Algerian, nicknamed “
Mouf
”, is tried again in Bordeaux for the organization of ten of these drug convoys driving large cars, the “
go-fasts
”, allowing the importation from Morocco of hundreds of kilos of cannabis resin in 2011 and 2012.
Procedural showdown
In September 2015, 14 people were tried for having played a role in this vast network, but only one was missing from the box, Moufide Bouchibi, sometimes renamed “
king of the shit
”.
At the time, the Bordeaux Criminal Court sentenced him in his absence to 20 years in prison and a million euros fine, for facts he disputes.
Scheduled over two days, Wednesday and Thursday, this new trial after opposition to this judgment, very quickly turned into a procedural standoff between magistrates and lawyers, for almost a day and a half.
Arrested in March in Dubai where he had settled and transferred in May to France, the alleged trafficker has so far not been heard, having spoken only a few words to disclose his identity and evoke "
a headache.
".
Nine suspensions
No less than nine suspensions, cries, exchanges of invectives, and in the end an intervention of the president to try to "
appease
" the spirits: the first day, essentially devoted to debates on the extradition and the detention of Moufide Bouchibi, turned to a legal guerrilla war in the courtroom.
The lawyers accused the court of wanting to try the defendant "
by forced march
", the magistrates denouncing them, an obstruction.
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Appeal of the deed of dismissal, contestation of the wiretaps, and of the arrest warrant launched in 2012: the lawyers again came back on Thursday to torpedo the procedure and try to cancel the trial, to no avail.
"
He was never informed that he was being pursued and that he was on the run (...) this trial is impossible, the massacre must be stopped
", pleaded Mr. Thomas Bidnic.
The prosecutor Mathieu Fohlen, without questioning the procedure, admitted for his part that he "
could not be on the run
", for these facts, because the defendant was already deemed to be abroad after his release from prison in 2009, with a known address in Morocco.
Around 2:30 p.m., the court only began to present the case.
