It was the video surveillance images and those shared on social networks that allowed investigators to trace and formally identify a 19-year-old young man, suspected of damage committed in Strasbourg, during the riots which followed the death of Nahel, including the fire of a local town hall.
Arrested on Tuesday, the young man, without a criminal record, was tried in Strasbourg in immediate appearance after his custody. As a reminder, on June 29, the young man formed barricades, fired mortars at the police and, in the company of other people, broke into the Neuhof-Meinau district town hall. He set fire to gasoline spilled by another rioter, then stole a French flag. The damage is estimated at 800,000 euros, underlined the lawyer for the town hall and the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg, Maître Gauthier Bautz.
“I have no explanations,” the defendant declared to the president of the court, Marc Picard, before evoking a “group effect”. The Strasbourg court finally sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment, including one year with a probationary suspension of three years with an obligation to work and an obligation to compensate the civil parties.
The young man was on trial alongside a 43-year-old homeless man, father of six children, who was on trial for having, the same evening, set fire to trash cans and encouraged minors to do the same. This forty-year-old, whose criminal record contains 31 mentions, notably for acts of theft, violence and a conviction for drug trafficking, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment with a committal warrant. “I have no regrets,” he said during the hearing.
Sentences more severe than those required
The court was more severe than the requisitions of four years of imprisonment, one of which was suspended on probation for the minor, and 30 months of imprisonment with a warrant of committal for the adult. The prosecutor Alexandre Chevrier declared that Nahel’s death was only a “pretext to break up” and considered that the fire of the neighborhood town hall, “a place serving the population”, constituted the “height of all absurdity”, “revealing an unfathomable stupidity and an absence of limits”.
The lawyer for the two men, Master Christophe Cervantes, stressed that his clients recognized the facts and warned against the temptation to make them “bear very heavy responsibility” for their roles in riots in which “dozens or even hundreds” participated. of people”. They have ten days to appeal.