“I'm going to burn you and your family”: prison sentence for former repeat trafficker

Maître Betoe a assuré la défense du mis en cause. Midi Libre – ALEXIS BETHUNE

Bien connu de la justice, un sexagénaire a écopé d’un mandat de dépôt à l’issue de son procès pour harcèlement.

"Je m’excuse. C’est la dernière fois que vous me verrez ici", promises the defendant. Well known to the justice system with a fourteen-page criminal record and a total of 25 years spent behind bars, a sixty-year-old repeat offender appeared on Monday, October 14, before the Alès criminal court after his trial was postponed last August.

The events took place in La Grand-Combe, from 2022 to 2024. Since his release after six years of detention for drug trafficking, pronounced in June 2017, the sixty-year-old harassed his ex-partner and her two daughters. During an altercation, the accused even kicked his ex's daughter, then aged 14. Also accused of attempting to set fire to the victim's vehicle, threatening to kill her, spraying insults on the walls of the town and refusing to comply with a police check, he was finally sentenced to a total of two years and ten months in prison, including one year suspended on probation, and a ban on staying in the Gard. Earlier, the prosecution had requested a three-year prison sentence, including one year suspended on probation, with a committal order.

“I'm going to cut her into pieces”

“I feel like a pressure cooker ready to explode”, describes Me Aurélien Vergani, lawyer for the civil party. “He has been immersed in violence since he was very young. His freedom is meaningless." Theft, armed violence, drug trafficking, criminal conspiracy and domestic violence against another of his exes, the defendant is a regular in court. “It's late, 60 years, for a realization. But better late than never. My client understood that what he did was wrong”, guarantees Me Olivia Betoe, defense attorney, justifying the defendant's rambling remarks by his health problems.

Two years of threats and daily harassment, the defendant drove past the victim to insult her while honking his horn. “I'm going to burn you and your family. “You'll see tomorrow morning”, he had threatened after trying to set fire to the victim's sister's vehicle. “I'm going to cut her into pieces” he had also told a police officer during his police custody.

Arriving free, he left the court in handcuffs, but did not hold back from contesting the court's decision before being taken to the Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone remand center. The reason was that the magistrates had just issued the arrest warrant requested by the public prosecutor.

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