Le Figaro Marseille
Three dead and three injured.
In April 2016, in the northern districts of Marseille, a bloody settling of scores raged in the Bassens city, in the 15th arrondissement.
Spectators of a football match broadcast in a store are targeted, for what will become the deadliest settling of scores of the year.
Almost ten years later, the Bouches-du-Rhône Assize Court is looking into this triple assassination from this Monday.
On the docks will be the brother of a previous victim of a settling of scores that occurred in Bassens, years earlier.
What are the facts ?
April 2, 2016 is a festive evening at the Bassens city, in the 15th arrondissement of Marseille.
Around fifteen young people are watching the match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, near the neighborhood's general food outlet.
Suddenly, around 10:20 p.m., a car arrives in the city.
Two armed people get out of the vehicle.
According to a witness on site, two young people repeated the same sentence.
"Where is he ?"
Then they shoot in the direction of the business.
When investigators arrived, the scene they discovered was macabre.
They don't know it yet, but they are facing what will be the deadliest score-settling of 2016.
Three men aged 21, 30 and 31 died.
One of them was found on the terrace in front of the general food supply.
The second was shot outside the snack bar, in front of the front door, near a shotgun.
The third lies on the ground, inside the power supply.
Three other men were injured in the buttocks and hands.
The youngest victim is just 18 years old.
The car which entered the city was found the same evening, completely burned in the northern districts of Marseille near the Maurlette district.
Inside the vehicle, which had been reported stolen in Valencia since February 27, 2016, investigators discovered a submachine gun.
“The facts clearly took place in a context of struggle between teams of rival criminals, whose members were involved in a succession of criminal cases in the course of 2015 and 2016”
notes the prosecution in the indictment order that
Le Figaro
obtained.
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Who are the victims ?
The first deceased victim, Othmane M., was unknown to the police, and would be a
“collateral victim”
of these assassinations.
He was in the company of several friends, injured during the events and civil parties today.
He was 21 years old.
“My clients hope to have the answers about what precisely happened and potentially some regrets
,” explains
his family’s lawyer, Me Stéphanie Spiteri, to Le
Figaro
.
He was a perfectly integrated man, completely unrelated to drug trafficking.
He found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, facing people who were shooting in the crowd.
Othmane M. was in the way.
This story decimated his family.
The second deceased victim, Adbillahi A., was 30 years old.
The man
“was known to the police to have been involved in the drug trafficking network
,” we read in the indictment order.
“He was also known to the police for intentional violence
. ”
The third victim, who died at the age of 31, was also
“unfavorably known to the police for drug trafficking committed in the Bassens city in 2012.”
According to the indictment order, the third victim, Heddy B. had already been arrested
“in the apartment serving as a location for cutting the Bassens network and implicated as a conveyor of narcotics to the nursing apartments”
.
“He was also known for carrying a prohibited weapon, contempt, violence, threats and driving without a license.”
Hamid G., injured during the incident, also turns out to be from the same family as Heddy B.'s co-perpetrator in the same drug trafficking case.
But Heddy B. and Abdihalli A. have another major point in common.
Both were implicated, without being indicted, in the assassination of three men in the same Bassens city, on December 25, 2011.
Who are the accused?
From April 9, 2016, investigators from the criminal brigade received information that did not fail to catch their attention.
A certain Lenny A. would be involved in the triple assassination which occurred a few days earlier.
However, Lenny A. is none other than the brother of one of the three victims of the settling of scores on December 25, 2011 in Bassens, the same assassination for which Heddy B. and Adbillahi A. were implicated.
The trail of a
“revenge context”
is emerging.
“According to this information, it appeared that the latter would have wanted to avenge the death of his brother murdered on December 25, 2021
,” we can read in the indictment order.
Before the events, Lenny A. would have been lodged with a certain B. from Bassens, who would have given the go for the shooting of April 2, 2016.
This resident of Bassens
“would have warned them of the presence of their targets in the food that evening.”
Nicknamed
“Bobotte”
, Lenny A. lived for a long time in the neighboring town of Micocouliers, in the 14th arrondissement of Marseille, before leaving the Marseille city in 2016.
“He was unfavorably known for theft, destruction or damage to public property, contempt
,” we can read in the indictment order.
His brother Sonny A. and his cousin Nouri O. were both killed at the Bassens drug sales point on Christmas Day 2011 at 10 p.m.
He was sentenced in 2020 to twelve years in prison for another case, a conviction against which he appealed.
The second accused, Mehdi L., is none other than the cousin of Lenny A. and therefore of Sonny A. He is already known to the police in particular for drug trafficking, a case of settling scores in 2008 and an attempted murder in 2009. He was convicted alongside Lenny A. in this drug trafficking case.
He had been out of prison since February 2016, a few months before the events.
Investigators in the case of the triple assassination of Bassens also suspect an underlying conflict between two rival gangs of drug traffickers, the Gypsies on one side to which Mehdi L. allegedly belonged and the Blacks on the other to which two of the victims of assassinations.
Before investigators, according to the indictment order, he denied any involvement.
“He discovered the facts by reading the newspaper
La Provence
on his wife's phone and specified that he understood that he was designated by the journalist, without being named, as possibly being involved.
He then contacted his lawyer and the journalist who wrote the article, who did not wish to speak to him.”
Mehdi L. has also already been involved in proceedings for criminal conspiracy alongside a certain Driss A., originally like Lenny A. from the city of Micoculiers.
Identified by investigators as the third man in the commando, Driss A. was also convicted by the Juvenile Assize Court in 2015 alongside Lenny A. in a robbery case.
He was placed in pre-trial detention in 2017.
All three will appear for “organized gang murder” and “attempted organized gang murder”, all as repeat offenders.
The trial is due to conclude on March 1.