Last Sunday, he fled. After years of being exploited by his family, this 55-year-old man decided to go to the Pont-Saint-Esprit gendarmerie (Gard) to tell about his ordeal and get out of his condition. “Yesterday
(Saturday
), I took a piece of bread, I hid it in my room. My sister saw it. And he
(Editor's note: his brother-in-law
), he hit me, telling me that I won't eat him! ", He confided in particular to the military, recounts France Bleu. An episode in the form of awareness to tell of the years during which this former farm worker was practically reduced to slavery.
The unfortunate's sister and her husband were imprisoned Thursday evening and the courts hold against them the offense of "reduction in servitude".
The couple face up to 10 years in prison.
Described as emaciated and emaciated, with bruises all over his body and cigarette burns, the 50-year-old explains having lived through hell.
Regularly beaten, he says he was treated "like a slave".
A strong term, moreover, taken up by Eric Maurel, public prosecutor of Nîmes: "We are on the verge of slavery, but we retain the offense of reduction of servitude, a rare qualification," he explains.
Struck and starved, his disabled allowance hijacked
Chopping wood, doing gardening work… the victim details exhausting days. Out of which the man had no right to anything. Under house arrest and locked up in a small room when it was evening. Worse, he was only allowed one meager meal a day and had to ask permission to go to the bathroom, still describes France Bleu. Obviously not paid, he was simply "housed in a room which served as a room", explains the prosecutor of Nîmes.
Dramatic proof of his condition, the former farm worker arrived with “hollow cheeks, protruding ribs” at the gendarmes.
And thinking that "barely 40 kilos", he has since had to be hospitalized.
Yet beneficiary of a disabled allowance of 1200 euros per month after a work accident, the man did not see the color of this money, which was actually used to cover the daily expenses of his sister and her husband.
For its part, the incriminated couple, she unemployed and he a former truck driver on sick leave, denies everything.
An immediate appearance could be held on Tuesday.
