Investigators see his mark on at least two double assassinations, which he allegedly ordered in 2016 and 2021 respectively. is expected, alone, this Monday in the box of the accused of the Assize Court of Aix-en-Provence.
For nearly ten years, judges and investigators have been running behind the man nicknamed “Mouse”. After multiple convictions for misdemeanors from 2002 (driving without a license, theft, trafficking, etc.), let’s say modest in view of the charges he faces today, the suspected leader of the lucrative narcotics sales network in the city of Olives A changed gears in the early 2010s. With his partner Ali Sadoni, still untraceable for his part, he was in the small papers of the OCRTIS (Central Office for the Suppression of Illicit Drug Trafficking). In a document that 20 minutes was able to consult, the investigators recall that they have “already been involved in two cases of settling of scores in February and March 2013 and indicted under judicial supervision with payment of a deposit of 150,000 euros in a triple attempted assassination perpetrated in August 2013”.
Released two days before turning fourteen
But the “Mouse” took advantage in 2016 of its judicial review to spin for the first time. Direction Oran, in Algeria, via Barcelona, where Kamel Meziani intended to settle permanently if we are to believe telephone tapping dating from June 2017. A search warrant and then an international arrest warrant was issued against him on August 24, 2018. The February 1, 2019, he was arrested at Marrakech airport and extradited to France on December 31 of the same year.
And once again, the “boss” of Oliviers A manages to get out of the nets of justice with the help of his lawyers. One of his advisers, Maître Raphaël Chiche, contests the extradition procedure and obtains on July 8, 2020 the lifting of his client’s prison following a judgment of the criminal chamber of the court of cassation. A liberation in extremis. Forty-eight hours later, on July 10, he was sentenced, in his absence, to fourteen years in prison in a vast trial of the Olivier stup plan. Six months later, he was sentenced to thirty years in prison, including twenty years of security, in a verdict handed down by the Assize Court of Aix-en-Provence for “complicity in murder” in the double settlement of accounts of KFC de Plombières, dating from October 2016. Two cases for which he will be judged. But “Souris” is still running and the settling of scores opposing it for nearly a decade to the clan of “Blacks”, established in the neighboring city of Lauriers, continues to bloody the city.
On the night of August 21 to 22, 2021, two men were murdered, city of the Blue Navy, punctuating a summer of blood during which fifteen people had been killed. Quickly, through surveillance prior to the facts, the investigators linked the vehicle that was used for these executions to Kamel Meziani. Amazingly, the leader and fugitive remained (or returned) to France and Marseilles, leading his troops into war. A war that continues to mourn the neighborhoods today: this conflict would weigh, according to the police, for nine of the 31 dead under the background of drug trafficking in the year 2022.
Defended by Redoine Faïd’s lawyer
Does he continue to pull the strings from his cell? Still, in 2022, Kamel Meziani was behind bars. He was arrested on August 31, 2021, ten days after the double homicide of the Blue Navy, at the Fleury-en-Bière toll gate, going up from the south. Then began for him and his lawyers a long legal marathon. And they obviously have resources and a few cards to play. Last April, he was acquitted of the head of criminal association in the case of the triple assassination attempt perpetrated in August 2013, for lack of evidence.
Judged from Monday until February 13 for two other murderous sequences, will the KFC Plombière of 2016 and the Marine Bleue of 2021 get away with it? His lawyers are in any case multiplying the appeals, arguing in particular for the nullity of the arrest warrant of August 24, 2018 based on the investigation carried out in the KFC Plombière case. “The questioning of Kamel Meziani is based exclusively on the statements of an anonymous witness”, pleads his lawyer, Raphaël Chiche, who also defends Redoine Faïd, in his request. Moreover, the latter “was already abroad” at that time, he adds.
This request has already been rejected at first instance, on appeal and is currently in the Court of Cassation. If the court has not yet ruled on this request by Monday, the case should be sent back, and Kamel Meziani will still escape, and for a time, from justice. If she allows it, he could be freed.