The public prosecutor requested this Monday in Melun twenty years of criminal imprisonment against a Jehovah's Witness accused of having, with "great meticulousness", fomented the assassination of his wife during a romantic picnic. in the park of the Château de Champs-sur-Marne in June 2017. “
If we want to intimidate him, why is it (his wife) who receives a bullet in the head?
If that's the target why was he shot in the shoulder?
“, pretends to wonder the general counsel Marie-Aude Chaminade.
Before accusing: "
He is not the victim he claims to be but the author of the shooting against his wife
".
Accused Version Changes
In the box, the man targeted by these comments remains calm and focused, as throughout the trial.
Philippe Goncalves, 39, a devout Jehovah's Witness, has been on trial since Monday by the Seine-et-Marne Assize Court for the failed assassination attempt on his wife.
The entrepreneur in the construction industry then allegedly asked an accomplice, hidden in the nearby woods, to injure him by shooting him to disguise the crime as an assault.
The Advocate General pointed to the "
changes in version
" of the accused, which, beyond the part attributable to the "
fallible memory
" of the human being, stem from a desire to "
clear ourselves of the facts that 'he committed
'.
To punish this “
project prepared for weeks
”, with “
great meticulousness and coolness
”, she required twenty years of criminal imprisonment, as well as five years of socio-judicial follow-up.
Marie-Aude Chaminade repeated the certainty of the accusation: "
to make (his wife) disappear is a way of remaining in the community and of leaving one's marriage
".
threat of divorce
At that time, the couple was going through a period of turbulence, the husband flirting with an employee.
However, in the rigorous community of Jehovah's Witnesses, a religious movement regularly accused of sectarian aberrations and to which they have devoutly belonged for more than a decade, divorce is prohibited and poses a risk of excommunication.
"
The flaw in his plan is the survival
" of the victim, who only keeps a hollow physical aftermath in the skull.
Concerning Sami M., 29, prosecuted for complicity in an assassination attempt, the public prosecutor considered that his possible knowledge of the criminal plan “does
not emerge from the elements of the file
”.
He requested against him four years in prison, accompanied by two years of probation for intentional violence with a weapon for having shot Philippe Goncalves.
The jury will deliberate in the afternoon, after the argument of the lawyers of Philippe Goncalves and the last speeches of the defendants.