The clashes continue without us really knowing the reasons and the weight of the laws of the city was Tuesday, September 5 at the heart of the second day of the trial of rapper MHD and eight co-accused for a murder in a settlement of accounts with a rival gang.
The nine men – one of whom is on the run – have been on trial since Monday September 4 for the murder, in 2018, of Loïc K., a collateral victim of rivalries between young people from the city of Grange-aux-Belles and that of Chaufourniers, nicknamed the “red city”, separated by a few hundred meters in the 10th and 19th arrondissements of Paris.
On the night of July 5 to 6, 2018, the 23-year-old young man was deliberately hit by a Mercedes in the 10th arrondissement, then lynched by a dozen men with kicks and knives, before dying.
The accused, who come from Chaufourniers, risk up to thirty years of criminal imprisonment. All deny having participated in the murder. In March 2017, the brother of one of the accused had already died in a brawl between the two gangs. How can we explain these outbursts of violence? What are the underlying reasons for these rivalries which seem to be passed down from generation to generation?
“I don’t know how to answer this question”, had already declared Monday evening Robby M., one of the defendants suspected of having stabbed the victim. On Tuesday, the Advocate General evokes clashes which have “no identified cause”.
The young people act “in a pack”, no longer defend themselves “with words but with blows of extinguishers” or “hammer”, declares at the bar a psychologist, relating the words of one of the accused, Hamidou T., whose she carried out the expertise.
The latter, who bears “after-effects” on his body, described “the savagery of the acts of violence”, according to the expert who underlines that in this universe, “the group will take precedence”. Getting out of this logic is difficult, especially since the Chaufourniers is a “fairly closed city with a fairly strong social bond”, describes a personality investigator. A system that could explain the “fear of reprisals”: even if all the defendants deny having participated in the murder and some claim to know the real perpetrators of the crime, none is willing to give names.
Like Wissem E.: according to the prosecution, which was based on videos of the crime scene, one of the individuals hitting Loïc K. was wearing a Lacoste jacket that belonged to him. He always claimed to have lent this jacket to someone else in the evening, whose identity he always refused to reveal. On the stand, this young man, now 25 years old, who spent three and a half months in pre-trial detention, says he was threatened and “attacked” in prison.
“Concretely, I had been asked to shut my mouth about this affair”, details this student in accounting and management, previously unknown to the police services. His brother, summoned as a witness, also explains that he was threatened “a dozen times” by the man to whom the jacket was allegedly lent. “There is not a day when I feel safe,” he says. “I would like to help you, I’m sorry, but it’s really hard to live with this on your back for five years”, he assures the president who is surprised that he does not say more. to exculpate his brother.
An omerta which pushes the magistrate to wonder if there is “room for the truth” in the courtroom. Verdict expected on September 22.
