Twenty-five years of criminal imprisonment were requested Tuesday against the leader of a small construction company tried before the Paris Assize Court for the murder with a knife of an associate.
Tamped on his bench, head down, all dressed in black, hands clasped together, Jean-Christophe Gomes, 40, almost mute since the beginning of his trial, did not react when the attorney general pronounced his requisitions.
'Unscrupulous and limitless liar'
Described as "an unscrupulous and limitless liar, a manipulator and a crook" by the representative of the prosecutor's office, he is accused of having given fifteen stab wounds to his associate, Zeljko Z., on June 18, 2020 in a studio under construction in the eighteenth arrondissement of Paris. According to the prosecution, a financial dispute could be at the origin of this "premeditated" murder.
Jean-Christophe Gomes was "a man ready to do anything to get out of financial acrobatics for which he was responsible," said the advocate general, Philippe Courroye, "he was ready for the irremediable". If the victim, after a history of convictions for burglary, is described by his entourage as "extremely honest" and "professional", it is different for the accused.
After six convictions for driving without a license, he was sentenced in 2019 to two years in prison and a heavy fine for fraud. A conviction confirmed on appeal in November 2021 and accompanied by a management ban. In the opinion of his father, a former manager of a masonry company, he was "not serious" in his work and "owed money to everyone".
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The victim would have confided to a friend, two days before the facts, that his associate owed him 23,000 euros. After his crime, Jean-Christophe Gomes will take six days, "leaving the body delivered to insects", to denounce himself, on the advice of his father, after having continued to direct the research on false tracks, recalled the attorney general.
In the dock, the victim's mother, sister and wife, mother of their two children, dressed in black, sob. If Jean-Christophe Gomes finally surrendered, "it is not because he was harassed by an unbearable remorse," says the advocate general, but because he had no other choice.
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What metal are you made of Mr. Gomes?" asks Philippe Courroye as he stares at the defendants' box. Jean-Christophe Gomes does not move, keeps his head down. At no time could his eyes meet those of his victim's family. The verdict is expected on Wednesday.