Aurillac: twelve years in prison for trying to kill a gendarme

On the night of Friday to Saturday, the Assize Court of Cantal in Aurillac sentenced a man to twelve years in prison for trying to kill a gendarme in 2021.

On March 27, 2021, the forty-year-old had threatened to commit suicide by sending messages to his ex-girlfriend, with whom he was in the process of separating. The latter had warned the gendarmes, who had found the man cloistered in his home in Lanobre (Cantal), shutters closed, and armed with a double-barreled rifle. The entrenched mechanic had fired several times from a window of his home around which 25 gendarmes had been deployed. The negotiations had failed and the GIGN had gone there.

Eight years prohibited from carrying or possessing a weapon

During the hearing, the 49-year-old man admitted to firing twice after leaving his home near a warrant officer who returned fire and hit him, wounding him in the stomach and arm. The madman surrendered three hours later. Transported to hospital, he was then indicted for attempted murder of a person holding public authority. He had since been imprisoned pending trial.

This sentence is higher than the requisitions of the Public Prosecutor's Office, which had requested ten years' imprisonment. In addition, after more than 4h30 of deliberation, the court accompanied this sentence with five years of socio-judicial follow-up with obligation of care and a sentence of three years in case of non-compliance. In addition, the man is prohibited from carrying or possessing a weapon for eight years.

The attorney general Agathe Bord had estimated that that evening, the madman who appeared very weakened at the hearing had shot to kill a gendarme, and not only, as he has always explained, "so that they leave" while his defense had asked for acquittal.