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After a resounding robbery, an investigation into three departments and two countries, then a series of settling of scores, the incredible looting with sequestration of 25 million euros in a Swiss van still has a few twists in store at the trial stage.
Thus, on the second day of the hearing, before the Lyon Assize Court, the lawyers for the three defendants present requested that the case be adjourned to a later date.
A request which follows a late announcement by the public prosecutor, the day before, concerning the alleged mastermind of this affair which required a very precise clarification.
Previously presented as being on the run, Mehdi A. would in fact be detained in Tunisia following a ten-year prison sentence last December.
"We learned yesterday that Mehdi A. was in the hands of justice, but he was never heard in the case",
pleaded Me Sylvain Cormier this Thursday morning, in support of the defense of Mehdi B. The latter is suspected of having taken part - with at least one accomplice - in the kidnapping of the daughter of the Swiss conveyor who had been asked by telephone to hijack his van on February 8, 2018, in a parking lot in the canton of Vaud, where his contents had been handed over to other criminals.
“
Now that there is hope that we can hear him, we cannot save our testimony
,” the lawyer continued.
“truncated trial”
The lawyers of Yusuf K., who was in the van with his colleague that evening and suspected of having provided information to the criminals, also requested the dismissal.
Me Maxence Pascal again insisted on the impression of a
"truncated trial"
, while only three defendants out of the six individuals initially targeted by the instruction are in the accused's box.
Without counting possible other supports, of which the director of investigation of the brigade of repression of the banditry (BRB) implied this Thursday morning that they could be numerous considering the extent of the facts.
Finally Me Florence Vincent, who defends Pascal G., suspected of having acted as a nanny, followed in the footsteps of his colleagues, asking for
"a fair trial".
The Advocate General challenged a
"purely dilatory measure"
, arousing the ire of the defence.
The civil party for its part requested that the trial be held this week, pointing to the other elements of the file which led to the order for reference, written in the absence of explanations from Mehdi A., "whose everyone had
made mourning”
.
The court decided to stay the proceedings pending the continuation of the debates, which continued with the hearing of the French and Swiss investigators.