The fire caused the death of five people in Strasbourg in 2020. This Monday, the Bas-Rhin Assize Court sentenced Sassoun Azarian to twenty-three years of criminal imprisonment for the “arsonist” fire and to four years and six months in prison Munasar Ali Abdullahi for failure to assist a person in danger.
In the morning, the attorney general, Alexandre Chevrier, requested a sentence of twenty-five years of imprisonment against Sassoun Azarian, considering that he had “voluntarily” thrown a cigarette butt into the electrical column of the building , and 12 years of imprisonment against Munasar Ali Abdullahi, for “complicity”. Both men faced life imprisonment.
An “intimate impression”
When the verdict was announced, Sassoun Azarian, a 24-year-old young man of Azerbaijani origin, denounced an “unjust” and “racist” decision, interrupting the President of the Court, Antoine Giessenhoffer. He was also found guilty of failure to assist a person in danger.
His lawyer, Me Randall Schwerdorffer, denounced a verdict based on “an intimate impression” rather than an “intimate conviction”. “It is quite obvious that we will appeal, because it seems obvious to us that the voluntary nature [de l’incendie] cannot be demonstrated in this case,” underlined the lawyer, who had demanded that the jurors look into the “involuntary” aspect of the fire starting.
An accused acquitted
Conversely, the court acquitted Munasar Ali Abdullahi of charges of arson causing death. She sentenced him only for failure to assist a person in danger, pronouncing a prison sentence close to the five years incurred, accompanied by a committal warrant. “This acquittal satisfies us,” reacted Michaël Wacquez, his lawyer.
“It is believed that Munasar Ali Abdullahi does not have the mental faculties to make decisions in extreme situations, the sentence handed down for the related offense remains difficult to accept,” he continued, indicating that he would study the possibility of appeal. Throughout the five days of trial, the question of the mental faculties of this 25-year-old young man arose. The personality investigator noted in him “a delay in motor and intellectual development”, his IQ was measured at 53. The expert psychiatrist, on the contrary, detected “no mental abnormality” in this accused who “cunning , fabulous and has an answer to everything.”