More than four years after the facts, the trial of thirteen young people, aged 19 to 25, accused of having tried to kill four police officers in Viry-Châtillon (Essonne) on October 8, 2016, opened this Tuesday morning in front of the Paris Court of Appeal.
The hearing will be held in restricted publicity, without public, because some of the defendants were minors at the time of the commission of the facts.
All having since become adults, there was a possibility of lifting this closed session.
But neither the lawyers nor the Advocate General have requested it.
The trial is scheduled to last six weeks.
At first instance, eight of the defendants had been sentenced to terms of 10 to 20 years' imprisonment and five others had been released.
The prosecution, which had requested sentences of 20 to 30 in prison, had appealed.
"Facts of incredible savagery"
On October 8, 2016, four police officers were stationed in two cars, opposite the Grande-Borne district, to monitor a camera mast which had been the subject of several damage and attempted damage.
About fifteen young people had appeared behind their vehicles, smashed the windows and threw Molotov cocktails at the two vehicles, then tried to prevent the police from getting out of their cars.
VIDEO. Viry-Châtillon: two police cars attacked with a Molotov cocktail
Vincent and Jenny had been severely burned, Sébastien had had his hands burned while rescuing his burning colleague and Virginie had been hit.
"These are facts of incredible savagery, and we are waiting for an answer to match the facts," comments Me Thibault de Montbrial, Jenny's lawyer.
It is difficult for my client to relive these events and such a trial, but she is determined and will attend part of the hearings.
»Unlike Sébastien and Virginie who will not come.
"They no longer want to think about it, they try to forget and move on," confides their advice, Me Franck Liénard.
For them, the first trial was complicated.
The second is unbearable.
"
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For Me Arnaud Simonard, whose client had been acquitted during the first trial in Evry, “we are sorry to have again to undergo this ordeal of a trial and that the prosecution did not accept his acquittal which was obvious.
In the first instance, anomalies and dysfunctions in the investigation were revealed during the debates.
Six weeks is pressure, tension, hostility.
Certain civil party lawyers and the Advocate General at first instance had such violent and excessive interventions that it could make matters more complicated on appeal.
"
