Prison sentences of one year suspended to 22 years firm were pronounced Thursday in Lyon against the nine protagonists of a violent robbery in 2018, which had started in Luxembourg before ending with a hostage taking in Beaujolais. .
Aged 30, the main protagonist of the case, who admitted part of the facts, was sentenced by the Rhône Assize Court to the heaviest sentence, found guilty of armed robbery and attempted robbery. homicide for shooting at police during his escape.
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The jurors did not follow the requisitions of the Advocate General who had requested Wednesday 30 years of criminal imprisonment and a security period of two thirds of the sentence against the accused, whose criminal record counted up to now 27 convictions including one of seven years for armed robbery in 2014.
Two of his accomplices were sentenced to 12 and 10 years in prison, one for having taken part in the robbery, the other for having driven one of the cars which had been used in the operation.
The last six defendants, including two women, prosecuted for having lent a hand to the team to varying degrees, received sentences ranging from one year suspended to three years in prison.
An arrest warrant has been issued against one of them who is currently at large.
The charges against the accused, who are now in their twenties and thirties, date back to March 20, 2018 with the robbery of a jewelry store in Luxembourg by two of them dressed as old men.
87 luxury watches, with a total value exceeding 2 million euros, were then stolen.
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The team of criminals then took the direction of France where the judicial police had tried to intercept their two cars in Limas (Rhône), at the exit of the A6 motorway.
Around 2:30 a.m., two of them were arrested without incident in the lead car.
The second vehicle had been spotted shortly afterwards, but its passenger, armed with an assault rifle, had fired several times in the direction of the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI), without causing any injuries, before taking the escape.
At the end of a chase, the car found itself abandoned in the town of Arnas (Rhône), while its two occupants had taken refuge in the pavilion of a housing estate, threatening with their weapon a couple and their four children surprised in their sleep.
The BRI had managed shortly after to arrest the two criminals, who held the loot.
Without gunshots.
