"
An execution
" in
the "hell
" of the Bois de Boulogne: the Advocate General requested Tuesday before the Assize Court of Appeal of Val-de-Marne fifteen and twenty years of imprisonment against two men accused of the murder of Vanessa Campos, a transgender sex worker killed in August 2018. Both had been sentenced to twenty-two years' imprisonment at first instance by the Paris Assize Court in January 2022.
Seven other Egyptians had been convicted in this case.
Advocate General Olivier Auféril requested twenty years against Mahmoud Kadri, 25, for murder in an organized gang and aggravated theft, and fifteen years against Karim Ibrahim, 30, for complicity in murder in an organized gang.
"
In this case, there is the shooter who pulls the trigger and the one I consider an accomplice who created the conditions for the fatal gesture to happen
," he said.
These two "
leaders
" were described as "
very violent
" by the civil parties, uttering "
daily threats of slaughter
" to prostitutes when they protested against the thefts which targeted their clients, recalls the magistrate.
He also asked for five years in prison against the three other defendants, one appearing for the theft of the murder weapon and two others for criminal association.
The purpose of this association was, according to the Advocate General, to "
regain control of the territory by putting an end to the resistance of prostitutes, which has become embarrassing since they recruited a protector, through physical reprisals
".
Sentences of permanent banning from French territory were also required for four of the defendants.
Current debates
Requisitions "
consistent
" with "
what we have been saying from the start: he is not the author of the fatal shot
", according to Karim Ibrahim's lawyer, Me Fares Aidel.
“
On the other hand, it seems totally incoherent whether he is a co-perpetrator or an accomplice from the moment he did not shoot, he did not order and did not wish for this death
”, he adds.
“
The debates made it possible to move forward on several points taken into account in the reasoning of the Advocate General, but not in the quantum of the penalty
” required, underlines for her part Me Léa Dordilly, who defends Mahmoud Kadri.
A true execution
On the evening of the crime, Mahmoud Kadri and Karim Ibrahim had found themselves in the Bois de Boulogne with a dozen other young men to confront the "
protectors
" hired by South American transgender prostitutes, targets for years of Egyptian thieves who robbed their customers.
Vanessa Campos, 36, was killed during this punitive expedition on the night of August 16 to 17, 2018, in a remote place in the Bois de Boulogne where she had been working for two years.
A real "
execution
", according to Me Quentin de Margerie, lawyer for the civil parties, including the mother and sister of Mrs. Campos and five of her colleagues: "
to kill, they were perfectly ready to do it and they did it
" during of this "
punitive expedition
", he insists.
Working in the Bois de Boulogne?
A "
hell
", he describes in front of the court, where the prostitutes face " armed, methodical
" and "
very violent "
thieves
, who exercise a "
regulated cutting, a pure and simple exploitation of this place of the wood of Boulogne
”.
Faced with this violence, vulnerable foreign women who "
do not know where to turn
and who, according to Me de Margerie, "
are afraid of the police because many are in an irregular situation
".