They were arrested in 2019 after a chase with a Kalashnikov in their vehicle.
Sentences of up to ten years in prison were handed down on Friday against three men suspected of belonging to Marseille drug banditry.
After a chase punctuated by an accident, the fugitives, one of whom was in a state of escape after a leave, were arrested in 2019. In the trunk, the police found an unloaded Kalashnikov and three black outfits with sizes corresponding to the build of the vehicle occupants.
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All three will be indicted in June 2020 for a double assassination committed on August 30, 2019, which notably targeted a leading figure in Marseille narcobanditism.
Two were also indicted for an assassination on August 15, 2019 in Nancy.
These “contextual elements” led the prosecutor to say that this transport of a weapon could “be part of a series of facts with more significant consequences”.
“An exaggerated sentence”
A few months after his arrest, one of the three defendants wrote to the investigating judge to take sole responsibility: “It was I who recovered this weapon from an acquaintance in prison,” he repeated to the court.
He would have bought this weapon for 2,700 euros, thanks to a “treasure” buried before his incarceration, in 2013, for 17 armed robberies: “It was to reassure me, to deter danger,” explained the defendant, who had was the subject of an assassination attempt in 2013.
This young man aged 28 had claimed “a confession bonus” for “this step taken towards court”.
However, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for offenses against weapons legislation and for criminal conspiracy: “An exaggerated, unjust and disproportionate sentence”, according to his defender, Me Yassine Maharsi.
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The driver of the vehicle, aged 27, was sentenced to six years in prison, but the court revoked a previous suspended sentence of one year and seven months.
“When they are arrested, one is in shorts, the other dressed all in orange, they are driving in a blue electric vehicle.
In the car, there are no gloves, no hoods, no ammunition… Where is the criminal association?
», pleaded Me Mehdi Khezami, his defender.
Sentenced to five years in prison, the youngest of the trio, aged 24, only admitted to seeing the weapon when it was loaded into the vehicle.