"Jimmy" and "ZZ", the two accused of the murder of Rudy, 15, shot in November 2016 in Marseille in the style of settling accounts of narcobanditism, were sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday by the court of Assizes of Bouches-du-Rhône.
The sentences of Khadim Thiam, 28, and Samir Zerouali, 26, were accompanied by a 22-year security measure, as requested by the prosecution in the morning.
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The jurors of the Aix-en-Provence court fully followed Advocate General Christophe Raffin, according to whom only a
"sentence of definitive social elimination"
could be applied
in the face of this
"massacre"
,
"the execution of 'a 15-year-old hobbled, shot in the chest and finished off like a dog
,' in the hills of Marseille. If other teenagers were killed at drug outlets in Marseille, they had been the victims of shootings, recalled the magistrate: with Rudy,
"this is the first case where we directly attack this way to a minor of 15 years ”.
The accusation was based mainly on the testimony of Nourdine, a friend of Rudy, who confirmed before the jurors to have seen the two defendants take the teenager with them, the hand on the shoulder.
“From there he was only in a tunnel that brought him to his death.
His fate was sealed by those designated by Nourdine "
, estimated the Advocate General, saluting the courage of this witness, who
" hung a target in the back and has no interest in saying inaccurate things ".
This testimony came to break the omerta traditionally surrounding the settling of scores in Marseille was also at the center of the defense pleadings, which demanded an acquittal.
"We are delirious"
Seeing Rudy walking away with Samir Zerouali and Khadim Thiam does not sign their participation in the assassination, insisted the lawyers of the accused.
"It's full of doubts, we have no elements, no certainties,"
pleaded Me Roch Lusinchi, the defender of "Jimmy":
"Who led him to the scene? Who killed ? Who set the fire? We are asking you for a penalty of elimination for such fragile things ”.
The absence of material evidence was also brandished by Me Philippe Jacquemin, the defender of Samir Zerouali, alias "ZZ":
"It is emptiness in terms of evidence. We are in the delirium, in the incantations of a small band of friends ”.
For the prosecution, Rudy actually died for nothing. Since a settlement of accounts the previous month, in the parking lot of a KFC in Marseille, the rumor was that the small coalman of the city Jean-Jaurès had given the killers the starting signal. One of the victims was a “cousin” of Khadim Thiam, victim of a drug turf war. Until the end, the two defendants, anchored in Marseille narcobanditism and with a very heavy judicial past, shouted their innocence.
"I am accused of having shot a young man of 15 years attached"
, launched Khadim Thiam:
"It is not real, we cannot accuse me of that".
Recalling that during the last three years he has already been sentenced to a total of thirty years in prison, Samir Zerouali implored the jurors
"not to judge (him) in relation to (his) reputation": "I do not have no reason to kill anyone, I have already taken thirty years, so one more sentence!
But I cannot confess to please ”.
They have both announced their intention to appeal the verdict.