These are penalties commensurate with the "seriousness of the facts", said the public prosecutor.
The prosecution requested Thursday in Paris sentences of fifteen to twenty years of imprisonment against two men members of a gang accused of the "sordid" murder in the Bois de Boulogne, on the night of August 16 to 17, 2018, by Vanesa Campos, an undocumented transgender sex worker.
Advocate General Olivier Auféril asked for the heaviest sentence, twenty years of criminal imprisonment, for Mahmoud Kadri, 24, the alleged leader and designated by all of his co-defendants as the one who had shot Vanesa Campos, which he disputes.
Against Karim Ibrahim, 29, "his accomplice", also referred to the Paris Assize Court for "murder in an organized gang", the representative of the prosecution requested a reclassification as "complicity in murder" and a fifteen-year prison sentence.
The Advocate General also requested five-year prison sentences, one of which was suspended, against six other defendants aged between 23 and 34, for their participation in the punitive expedition that led to the murder or for the theft of the murder weapon.
Read alsoVanesa Campos: the tragic fate of a trans prostitute victim of a punitive expedition
Olivier Auféril also asked that the accusation of "murder in an organized gang" reproached to a third man, Aymen Dib, be reclassified as participation in a criminal association, "no element" having, according to him, confirmed that he had indeed stabbed the victim.
The prosecution finally requested that these sentences be accompanied for the eight men of Egyptian origin by a ban on carrying weapons and a ban, for a period of ten years or definitive, from French territory.
The trial of these eight men has been taking place since January 11, before the Paris Assize Court.
"Mahmoud Kadri is the shooter"
This band wanted to "regain control of the territory by putting an end to the resistance of prostitutes", pointed out the general counsel.
South American trans sex workers had indeed been forced to hire men to protect them from these thieves who had been robbing their clients for several years.
In this case where “several versions clash”, “contradictory versions, evolving, incompatible with the findings” of the investigators on the spot, the representative of the prosecution indicated to proceed “by deductions”.
But what is certain for the Advocate General is that on the evening of the events, this sex worker found herself "naked, defenseless, faced with the arrival of a pack".
A group of at least ten young men, armed and "galvanized by a feeling of omnipotence", underlined Olivier Auféril.
Read alsoVanesa Campos: “The Penal Code does not apply to the Bois de Boulogne”
But who struck the fatal blow?
Is it Karim Ibrahim, as asserted - and he is the only one - Mahmoud Kadri?
This "theory seems to me not very credible", swept away the Advocate General, for whom "Mahmoud Kadri is indeed the shooter" and Karim Ibrahim, who "had a driving role in the organization of the expedition", his " partner in crime ".
The investigation was not "perfect"
The investigation into the murder of Vanesa Campos was not "complete, perfect", admitted the Advocate General, some of the participants in the expedition of August 16, 2018 having "passed through the cracks".
"But this is not a reason to disarm the repression against" the eight men returned to court, in an irregular situation in France and some of whom have criminal records, supported Olivier Auféril.
His two and a half hour indictment, after fifteen days of a chaotic hearing marked by various incidents, was interrupted by insults towards him from one of the defendants, Mahmed A., who was once again expelled from the box. .
The hearing resumed at the beginning of the afternoon with the first arguments of the defence.
Verdict expected on Saturday.
