It is an understatement to say that they were vehement in the box of the Meaux criminal court this Wednesday.
However, they were tried for theft in a meeting and violence in a meeting, committed as a repeat offender.
But far from keeping a low profile, they tended to shift the blame onto their victim, who was absent at the hearing.
It was on Sunday evening that these two defendants - drunk at the time of the attack - hit a 28-year-old man and stole his coat.
The scene was filmed by the city of Meaux's video surveillance cameras, which also allowed the municipal police to arrest them immediately, on Quai Sadi Carnot.
“I slapped him because he insulted me.
He told me
to shut up.
I’m telling the truth, I hit him,” said Rabbi, 28 years old.
That evening, his blood alcohol level was 3.12 grams of alcohol per liter of blood.
The victim had fallen to the ground.
His sidekick didn't get any more upset behind the window of the box: “I picked her up.
I was cold, I slept in the street.
I saw he had a nice coat, I took it.”
And the thirty-year-old explains that all this was done without violence.
Hence this purely rhetorical question from President Cécile Lemoine: “He wanted to give you his coat?
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“An explosion of violence for a trivial reason”
Deputy prosecutor Julien Piat did not hide his concern, faced with these two defendants with “arm-length” criminal records.
The prosecutor mentioned the “certain dangerousness” of the two men: “The victim was slapped and punched.
There was an explosion of violence for a trivial reason.
We can all find ourselves in a situation where these two will beat you up, for the slightest triviality.”
And Julien Piat to request, against the youngest, a sentence of 8 months in prison, with committal warrant and revocation of 4 additional months, pronounced during a previous conviction.
Against the oldest, the deputy requested 18 months in prison, with immediate incarceration.
Requisitions which obviously did not suit the defense lawyer, Me Audrey Sagory, who spoke of the social difficulties of her clients, demanding obligations of care.
The judges followed the prosecution's requisitions to the letter.