The Bayonne public prosecutor's office requested the referral to the assizes for aggravated voluntary homicide of two men suspected of having fatally assaulted a bus driver in July 2020 in Bayonne, we learned on Friday April 29 from the public prosecutor.
Read alsoBus driver killed in Bayonne: “Banality of barbarism”
In a final indictment issued at the end of April, the prosecution retained the qualification of intentional homicide committed in a meeting and on a person in charge of a public mission against these 24-year-olds imprisoned since the tragedy, explained Jérôme Bourrier, confirming information from
The Republic of the Pyrenees
.
The investigating judge in charge of the case can now make an order for referral to an assize court, with the charges that she has retained and after any observations from the various parties.
“Extreme violence”
On July 5, 2020, Philippe Monguillot, 59, married and father of three adult daughters, was struck by two passengers after a ticket check went wrong, an assault "
of extreme violence
" according to the Bayonne prosecutor's office. .
Left brain dead, he died after five days in a coma.
The circumstances of his death had caused a wave of emotion in Bayonne, where a white march had brought together some 6,000 people, and caused the indignation of the political world, with the on-site visit of the Ministers of Transport and the Interior.
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The altercation started inside the bus, at a stop, and escalated after the driver headbutted one of the attackers.
Outside the bus he had been badly beaten, one final punch knocking him to the ground.
This fall had caused a fracture of the skull and a haemorrhage, the cause of death.
For months, the defense of the two alleged attackers tried to undermine the thesis of a surge of violence, aiming to reclassify the facts as "
intentional blows resulting in death without intention to give
it", punishable by fifteen years of criminal imprisonment and not the life imprisonment that they currently incur.
Two other men present at the time of the events had been examined for "
failure to assist a person in danger
".
One of them could be judged for these facts and for having lodged the alleged attackers.
A dismissal is however required for the fourth man.
SEE ALSO
- Bus driver killed in Bayonne: "Never again", claims the widow of Philippe Monguillot