The story of Éric Wamele had moved the capital.
The two main defendants of the death of a young man, in 2019, in the basement of a building in the Belleville district of Paris, were sentenced to fifteen and eighteen years in prison, it was reported. learned Saturday from their lawyers.
They had been on trial since Tuesday by the Paris Assize Court for the death of Eric, 21, discovered by the police lying in a garbage room in a building in Belleville, November 22, 2019. Partially naked, with a wound on the level of the head, he had died of a hemorrhage shortly after the arrival of help.
The two men were found guilty of “arrest, kidnapping and forcible confinement followed by death,” said Philippe Sarda, who was defending Anthony Cilpa, sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
Jean Marengo, designated by the prosecution as the one who played "the major role" in the "punitive expedition", was sentenced to eighteen years in prison.
"Torture and barbarism" were not retained by the jury
The Advocate General had respectively requested seventeen and twenty years of imprisonment against the two men, aged 26.
On the other hand, the jury did not retain the aggravating circumstance of "torture or act of barbarism".
On Friday, the counsel for the two defendants had pleaded "that there (was) no sufficient material elements for this legal qualification".
If Jean Marengo and Anthony Cilpa recognized the violence, motivated by a financial dispute, they had denied any "sequestration".
According to them, they were unaware of the seriousness of the victim's injuries, or of the fact that she could not leave the cellar once the door was slammed.
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Jean Marengo's lawyer, Me Yassine Bouzrou, indicated that his client "considered (had) the possibility of an appeal", believing that the court had lacked impartiality during the hearing and denouncing a "botched investigation". ".
A third defendant, Bouyé T., 21, was sentenced to four years in prison, two of which were suspended, for "non-assistance to a person in danger", "a measured sanction", according to his lawyer, Me Olivia Ronen.
The prosecution had requested the same sentence, welcoming the consistency of the young man's statements, but stressing that he had seen "live" the "peril" in which the victim was and had "chosen to stay", then to leave with his friends during the evening, without calling for help.