Murder of Abdelkader, 17, killed at Mas de Mingue in January 2021: nine accused facing the assizes

On January 25, 2021, avenue Monseigneur Claverie, a 17-year-old boy was killed after several shootings. He received only one which caused violent hemorrhage. HOCINE ROUAGDIA ARCHIVES

La Bac est déployée avec des armes lourdes. ARCHIVES HOCINE ROUAGDIA

On January 25, 2021 at Mas de Mingue, a series of shots broke out at Mas de Mingue. A 17-year-old boy died. The PJ's investigation and investigation led to the indictment of nine people suspected of having been involved in the teenager's death. The assize trial is scheduled to take place from June 24 to July 1. Hearing under close surveillance.

Chilling criminal scene. Night of January 2021 in the Mas de Mingue district, shots have just broken out on avenue Monseigneur Claverie, emergency police cars arrive in a few moments, banners prohibit the movement of people in the area. access. The neighborhood is strangely quiet. La bac arrives on site. Police officers armed with shotguns, some with machine guns, are distributed around the criminal scene which will prove fatal a few moments later. A magistrate from the Nîmes public prosecutor's office supervises the start of the investigation.

The atmosphere is heavy and cold. We learn that a young man from the neighborhood was shot, he was taken to the hospital in critical condition but some elements suggest that he will get through it. On the scene, the emergency vehicles have disappeared and only the police officers from the BAC and the prosecutor are surveying the scene looking for potential clues…

Massive hemorrhage caused by a single shot

The police cordoned off the crime scene on January 25, 2021. HOCINE ROUAGDIA

The scene goes back to Monday, January 25, 2021not far from the café on the corner and not far from the post office and the old police office, closed for many years. On site we learn that’ a car passed in front of a building porch and shots rang out around 8 p.m. then a local kid was shot. He was downstairs with some friends. He was hit by a single bullet. It reached an artery in the pelvis and caused a significant hemorrhage despite the active intervention of emergency services and a local teenager.

Sitting on the edge of a wall, his hand bloody, he turns to the journalist and asks.  " Can I leave ? "… "I don't know, ask the prosecutor who is there, he will tell you". On site, the prosecutor's representative remained on the scene, the young man was finally allowed to leave a few moments later. He is visibly in shock. We later learn that his hand is stained red with the blood of the victim to whom he helped while trying to stem the bleeding. His action made it possible to initially avoid the worst. But more than an hour after the operation was launched, the news broke. The young man has just died in hospital. The faces darken.

The public prosecutor warns the prosecutor Eric Maurel, the Bac police officers also report to their hierarchy that the teenager is dead. It is now an investigation into murder and probably an assassination given the prepared nature of the commando operation with a car stolen for the occasion and repeated shooting in the direction of ;a building porch. Twelve 9mm bullet cases were found at the scene. It appears that a Luger, an automatic pistol was used.

The judicial police were responsible for the investigation. HOCINE ROUAGDIA ARCHIVES

Micro spy hidden in a USB key

The case will finally be entrusted to the SRPJ police officers and to an investigating judge from the Nîmes judicial court. Investigations gave rise to checks, hearings, cross-checking of all kinds, including forensics and sophisticated ballistic analyses. It is a titanic investigative task that the investigators carried out after thousands of pages of proceedings to identify the direct or indirect participants in this fatal shooting.

The indictment order contains more than 80 pages recalling the progress of the case and accumulated clues such as an astonishing USB spy key which recorded conversations  of traffickers who uncover the hidden face of Nîmes narcobandism.

The personality of the victim will be studied at length and will bring to light suspicions of proximity to the world of drug trafficking with a presence on a deal point and suspicions about participation in transactions in November 2020 which were documented in a police procedure. Apart from this aspect, the   Assize court will have to determine in what circumstances a commando drove past a building porch and how a man opened fire. repeatedly.  

This trial is the first recent case  homicide against a backdrop of narco-banditry which will be judged since the traffickers' war broke out in Nîmes in 2020.

Every person is presumed innocent until justice has been definitively served.  

“Families want the truth”

Me Dounia Hamchouch, the lawyer for the family of the young man shot dead, contests any involvement of the victim in any trafficking and recalls that the teenager has never been convicted. "Concerning him, there’there is no judgment in this sense", believes Me Hamchouch. It highlights the ordeal endured by the victim's family in the face of the death of this teenager. She also explains that the young man's relatives tried to leave the neighborhood and asked the authorities for help.

"But all their efforts to be relocated to another neighborhood were in vain. They even wrote to the President of the Republic,” laments the lawyer. The batonniere Me Khadija Aoudia will also be on the civil parties' bench to speak for the victim's family. Me Aoudia. & quot;We want to give the truth to families who do not understand the crime that was perpetrated. Families want the truth.

 

Six days of hearing planned before the Gard assizes. ILLUSTRATION H.R.

 

Nine accused in the box

In July 2023, the investigating judge ordered the indictment of nine people. Some defendants will be tried for the shooting which led to the death of young Abdelkader. Others will be tried for attempted murder, in this case on the other young man who was on the scene and who had not been injured despite the opening fire. He had not filed a complaint. Thus, less than a year after the indictment order, the Gard Assize Court will analyze under what circumstances a car passed at full speed in front of a building in Mas de Mingue and how one of the occupants of the vehicle opened fire.

Among the accused, some will be tried for murder by complicity, namely by having provided a weapon and a vehicle; another man will be charged with murder, criminal conspiracy and attempted murder. A Nîmes man will also be tried for having set fire to a car which was used in the Mas de Mingue commando operation, another accused will be tried for having bought bulletproof vests and weapons. Beyond the role of each person, which will have to be dissected, the court will have to understand the role of each person and address the motive behind this case of murder of a 17-year-old teenager. The war between the drug trafficking clans will be at the center of the trial which will bring together the best criminal lawyers in the region (Me Bapstiste Scherrer, Hugo Ferri, Luc Abratkiewicz, Cyril Caron, Elodie Toniazzo, Camille Alliez, Karim Bouguessa, Marine Santimaria, Karim Morand- Lahouzi). The trial should in principle last six days.

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