From 30 years in prison to 0. Christopher Aouni, 38, suspected of being a figure in Marseille drug banditry, was acquitted Thursday on appeal of an assassination for which he had been sentenced to 30 years of criminal imprisonment, announced the one of his lawyers at AFP.
Before the Var Assize Court of Appeal, the Advocate General had requested confirmation of the conviction and sentence pronounced during the first trial before the Aix en Provence Assize Court in February 2023 but the defense denounced an “empty folder”.
Christopher Aouni, however, remains in detention in connection with four other cases - three for murder, one for attempted murder - which have not yet been judged.
On March 24, 2018, Saci Labidi, 30, was killed by two Kalashnikov shots at point blank range while he was playing cards in the association premises of the Consolat city, in the working-class neighborhoods of the north of Marseille, gangrene by the drug trafficking.
According to the prosecution, Saci Labidi, a bodybuilder very involved in the social life of the neighborhood, would have opposed the establishment of a second point of sale of narcotics in Consolat.
And he even chased away drug dealers.
Encrypted telephone and internecine warfare
Christopher Aouni has always denied being the author of this execution.
The investigation was based on an encrypted telephone, used by the authors and whose route was geolocated to the scene of the fire of the commando vehicle in Vitrolles a few minutes after the events.
According to the prosecution, Christopher Aouni was the owner of this phone, even if the person concerned repeats that it was in the possession of one of his friends, Hichem Menadjlia, who even showed up shortly after his arrest to confirm his say.
Since then, Hichem Menadjlia has also been killed, in what appears to be an internal war within the so-called “Marignane” gang, one of the main local narco-banditry gangs, according to the judicial police.
Despite multiple testimonies and his involvement in other cases with members of this clan, Christopher Aouni denies having been part of it.