The parents of little Smäel, who died of hunger and beatings in 2018 at the age of 13 months, expressed "regret" while minimizing their responsibility Monday at the opening of their trial for "aggravated murder" in court Assize de la Marne.
“I regret what happened.
It wasn't intended.
I was not myself, ”said the mother, Arlette, 25-year-old Ivorian, before bursting into tears.
She admitted that "something had happened without being able to explain it".
"I regret what happened," repeated Omar, Smaël's father, before the Marne Assize Court in Reims, which is due to deliver its verdict on Friday.
“But I didn't see anything, didn't do anything.
I've never typed, ”added this 37-year-old Frenchman born in Mauritania.
Injuries caused by electric wire
The child was discovered by the emergency services in cardiorespiratory arrest in an apartment in Reims in October 2018, following a call from parents, in a state of malnutrition and carrying multiple traces of violence on his body.
Despite the resuscitation attempts, Smaël died a few hours later.
Smaël "carried around fifty wounds caused by electric wire on the abdomen and thorax" in a sort of "flagellation".
The boy was "in a state of severe malnutrition" and carried "brain damage" which caused his death, detailed the president, Emilie Philippe, in the presentation of the file.
According to her, “the beatings had been going on for several weeks”.
Psychiatric expert reports noted "a great psycho-emotional immaturity" in the father, and "a deficient personality with a weak intelligence and a severe depressive state" in the mother, victim of "deprivation and abuse in Côte d'Ivoire ".
The couple have an elder, placed.
The mother recognizes "not serious slaps"
In police custody, the father had denied having given fatal blows, claiming that it was the mother who took care of everything.
During the last hearing, the mother “finally recognized a few slaps but not serious.
(…) She confirms that she was solely responsible for her son's education.
It never implicates ”the father, reported Monday the commissioner Fabien Grethen, in charge of the investigation.
"Dysfunctions and real failures cost the life of this child", denounced Me Laurence Micallef-Napoly, for the association L'Enfant Bleu-Enfance Maltraitée which brought a civil action, like the association Innocence in Danger.
