Nearly four months after the murder of Thomas, this 16-year-old rugby player, at a winter ball in the small village of Crépol (Drôme), the investigation entrusted to two investigating judges from the Valence court took a leap forward. Before.
While eleven new suspects were arrested this Monday in the Monnaie district of Romans-sur-Isère, three of them were brought before the magistrates this Thursday afternoon, at the end of their police custody, learned
Le Figaro
from the Valence prosecutor's office.
Facing the judges, they will have to answer for their potential involvement in this violent fight, while a good-natured party was coming to an end.
This had started during the evening for a trivial reason between a young rugby player and another from the sensitive Monnaie district, in Romans-sur-Isère, where Thomas was studying.
The altercation then moved to the front of the small village hall, before turning into a general fight, then taking a dramatic turn when individuals opposed to the rugby players then took out knives.
Besides Thomas, eight people were injured that evening, four of them seriously.
The murder of the teenager, the last son of a couple of restaurateurs from Drôme, subsequently aroused strong emotion among the inhabitants of the neighboring villages and of Romans-sur-Isère, located about fifteen kilometers from Crépol, in point of taking on a national scale for several weeks.
The sensitive district of La Monnaie, in Romans, was then identified as the place of residence of several of the members of this gang of hostile teenagers during the evening.
Subsequently, the first 9 individuals - including three minors - were arrested and then indicted for "organized gang murder", "attempted murder" or "group violence".
Perpetrator of fatal blow unknown
For now, the question of who stabbed Thomas fatally remains the major mystery of the investigation, which is only just beginning.
The investigators focused for a time on one individual, Chaïd A., 20 years old, before successively focusing on other suspects.
The use of telephone data could also provide valuable answers, in particular to determine whether the young people from La Monnaie were all present from the start of the Crépol evening, or whether they were joined by armed reinforcements as the fight degenerated. , as a source close to the matter indicated to Le
Figaro
last December.
Given the number of people present that evening - several hundred - and the chaos that reigned there, the elements of the crime scene proved complex to exploit.
Among the eleven people arrested this Monday, six were released, also specifies the Valencia prosecutor's office in its press release.
The last two remain in police custody for the time being.
This can extend up to 96 hours, i.e. until tomorrow morning.