They were initially sentenced to 22 years in prison at first instance by the Paris Assize Court in January 2022. “They” are Mahmoud Kadri and Karim Ibrahim, 25 and 30 years old respectively, accused of having killed Vanesa Campos, a transgender sex worker, in August 2018 in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, during a punitive expedition. The court significantly reduced their sentence on appeal, sentencing them on Thursday to 17 and 14 years in prison.
Advocate General Olivier Auféril had requested Tuesday sentences of 20 years against Mahmoud Kadri for murder in an organized gang and aggravated theft, and 15 years against Karim Ibrahim, for complicity in murder in an organized gang. “In this case, there is the shooter who pulls the trigger and the one I consider an accomplice who created the conditions for the fatal gesture to happen,” he said.
“By reducing our client’s sentence by eight years, the court, after peaceful debates, restored the fair role of his participation in this case”, declared the lawyers of Karim Ibrahim, Me Julien Fresnault and Me Fares Aidel, to the outcome of the trial. This decision made it possible to “ensure that justice is done” for Vanesa Campos, added Me Aidel. Me Quentin de Margerie, lawyer for the civil parties – including the mother and sister of Vanesa Campos and five of his colleagues – did not wish to react to the verdict.
“Armed, methodical” and “very violent” thieves
On the evening of the crime, Mahmoud Kadri and Karim Ibrahim had found themselves in the Bois de Boulogne with a dozen other young men to confront the “protectors” hired by South American transgender prostitutes, targets for years of Egyptian thieves who robbed their customers.
Vanesa Campos, 36, was killed during this punitive expedition on the night of August 16 to 17, 2018, in a remote place in the Bois de Boulogne where she had been working for two years. A real “execution”, according to Me Quentin de Margerie: “to kill, they were perfectly ready to do it and they did it” during this “punitive expedition”, he had insisted, on behalf of the civil parties.
Working in the Bois de Boulogne? A “hell”, he had described before the court, where the prostitutes face “armed, methodical” and “very violent” thieves, who carry out a “regulated cut, a pure and simple exploitation of this place of the Bois de Boulogne “. Faced with this violence, vulnerable foreign women who “do not know where to turn” and who, according to Me de Margerie, “are afraid of the police because many are in an irregular situation”.
A man acquitted
Mahmoud Kadri and Karim Ibrahim appeared on appeal alongside three other Egyptians, accused of criminal association and the theft of the murder weapon. One was acquitted. The other two were sentenced respectively to three years’ imprisonment, one of which was suspended for the theft of the weapon, and five years, two of which were suspended for criminal association.
“The Assize Court considered that there was not enough evidence in the file” and “we are very satisfied with this decision which is fair”, welcomed Me Léa Zimmermann, lawyer for Karim Abousheisha, acquitted in call. He had been sentenced to six years in the first instance.