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Zouhaier B. and Zouhir H., the two defendants in the case of the fatal fire in rue de Vienne in Lyon, both managers of the ZZ bakery, were respectively sentenced to 19 and 17 years in prison by the Court Assizes of Lyon.
Adel B., the arsonist, now on the run in Tunisia, where he was sentenced to 15 years in prison - a sentence he appealed - for these same facts, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Both were found guilty of the offenses with which they were charged and for which the maximum penalty incurred was 30 years.
The judges held that the two defendants present had no criminal record and low criminal danger.
“
The facts are serious but for a futile reason, a few tens of thousands of euros
“Simply commented the president before closing the hearing.
Read also“Anna was all my life”: the pain of the father of the family at the trial of the fire on the road from Vienne to Lyon
25 and 30 years old required
The two managers of the bakery located at 125, route de Vienne, were accused of having ordered, in February 2019, the fire of their business during an attempted insurance fraud.
A fire that claimed the lives of an 8-month-pregnant mother and her four-year-old daughter.
"The collateral victims of total injustice"
, lamented the father's lawyer, the only survivor of the tragedy, Me Guillaume Baulieux.
During his indictment, the Advocate General had requested between 25 and 30 years in prison for the three men.
The culmination of a week of debates which made it possible to expose the version of the police investigation to illustrate the interest that the two accused would have had in the realization of their scam, after having increased their insurance contract two months before the facts.
The two defendants assured that it was simply a reaction to the attack on their window by a ram truck, then set on fire, at the end of 2018. An attack fomented, according to them, by a competitor baker.
But this track was quickly evacuated by the Advocate General.
"What competition could the ZZ Bakery have?"
, he swept away, underlining the calamitous management of the trade whose saleswoman falls asleep while waiting for customers and the baker is bored.
The defendants will appeal
The defense of the suspects insisted on the lack of material evidence in this case.
Why set fire to his bakery two months after it opened?
“We were all flabbergasted and upset by the speeches
, declared Me Katia Gabriel, underlining the pain of the family.
These facts are so serious that there has been social indignation.
She has no place in this forum.
By demanding socially from those responsible, we judicially manufacture those responsible.
The why cannot replace the how.
And for Me Saint-Pierre to point out a
"situation of major risk of miscarriage of justice"
before asking for the acquittal of the defendants in the absence, according to them, of certain evidence, despite the motive.
Questioned at the end of the trial, Me Saint-Pierre declared that he was going to appeal on Monday: “
I maintain that this is a miscarriage of justice.
See you in a few months before another Assize Court where I hope to obtain an acquittal.
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