Cannabis, cell phones, SIM cards, hamburgers… the “delivery” of inmates to the Mende remand center turns into a fiasco

Pour le parquet, les deux complices ont tenté d'implanter un trafic de drogue à la maison d'arrêt. Midi Libre – JUDY JANUARIUS

Two half-brothers from Toulouse were dropped off, on the night of Wednesday March 6 to Thursday March 7, 2024, a stone's throw from the penitentiary establishment with a bag full of small packages. Drunk and poorly prepared, they were quickly picked up by the police. They were judged by the Mende criminal court this Tuesday, March 12, 2024.

It is 2:20 a.m. this Thursday, March 7, 2024, when the police officers from the Mende police station are contacted by a guard from the remand center. The agent, on the video surveillance cameras, has in fact been witnessing for a few minutes a funny "merry-go-round". Two men, using a system of fishing line and sheets stretched between a cell and the outside, attempt to bring packages into the penitentiary establishment.

The process, certainly ingenious but fragile, breaks twice. Part of the merchandise falls, the other remains stuck high up. Hamburgers will be found first. The rest of the order will then be collected using a basket lent by the City. In several socks, the police found 257.58 grams of cannabis resin, divided into two bars of soap, as well as five cell phones, eleven SIM cards and chargers.

A switchblade knife found

Alarms, installed on electrical wires, also went off. When they arrive there, the police come across these two delivery men of a particular type. One carries a switchblade knife. Both "smell of alcohol and have red eyes. Their blood alcohol levels are recorded. It displays 0.49 mg/L of exhaled air, for one, and 0.45 mg/L for the other. The two accomplices, originally from Toulouse , are also half-brothers. They arrived exactly at 1:56 a.m. in the Lozère prefecture, as evidenced by other cameras installed on avenue Foch. To At the end of their custody, they are placed in pre-trial detention pending their trial before the Mende criminal court.

The hearing finally takes place this Tuesday, March 12, as part of an immediate appearance. Before their judges, the two defendants pleaded guilty, but minimized their involvement. "We didn't know where we were going, they confide on the stand. We were with someone we had met at parties. It was after making us drink vodka that he told us what we were going to do. He threatened us, our mother, and our disabled brother if we didn't do what he wanted. We were with two strong individuals who made it clear to us that we had no choice."

Residency ban in Lozère

Statements in which Magali Espaze, the deputy public prosecutor, absolutely does not believe:“We know they're lying. They know they are lying. They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know that they are lying. And, yet, they continue to lie", she claims during her requisitions, using the famous quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn,&nbsp ;Nobel Prize for Literature 1970.

The public prosecutor is certain of this. This is an attempt to establish a small drug trade in the small Mende remand prison. And for this, its representative is asking for twelve months in prison with continued detention, the revocation of the two months of a previous probationary suspension and a three-year ban on stay in Lozère for the oldest of the two brothers; twelve months including six months fully accompanied by a two-year probationary reprieve, with obligation to work and care, with continued detention for the firm part, as well as the same ban on stay in the department. "I ask you to reject any modification of sentence", she presses.

Prison farm

The defendant, almost 24 years old, is finally sentenced to sixteen months in prison, with continued detention. His two-month reprieve is revoked. He will be banned from staying in Lozère for three years. The 21-year-old will serve a sentence of fifteen months in prison, six of which will be accompanied by a probationary suspension of two years, with an obligation to work and/or train and receive care. in addictionology. His continued detention is also decided. He inherits the same additional penalty concerning the ban on residence, to which is added a ban on carrying a weapon for five years.

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