An “incomprehensible” decision for the civil parties. The octogenarian ex-soldier, suspected of having killed a young neighbor in Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes) seven months ago, was released on Friday, we learned from a source familiar with the matter. The 83-year-old suspect is prohibited from possessing a weapon, from going to the Ardennes and from leaving the national territory, according to the release order issued on Friday, of which AFP was aware.
On December 9, 2022, Mahamadou Cissé, 21, was shot dead in the Ronde-Couture priority district. The prosecutor of Reims during the facts, Matthieu Bourrette, had then evoked a possible “murder by exasperation”. In May, some 300 people gathered in Charleville-Mézières to demand justice for Mahamadou Cissé, and his sister spoke of a “botched file”.
A botched investigation and a racist suspect?
According to the Reims prosecutor, the alleged perpetrator, a retired worker, a former member of naval commandos who participated in the Algerian war, had declared that he had opened fire after being insulted by this young man and taken to task by his group.
But the victim’s family deplored numerous negligence in the investigation, a sign of “contempt” or even “racism”, and the civil parties want the premeditation to be retained, the octogenarian having made threats of which the police had been informed.
The defendant, “supported by the far right through a petition and a kitty, regained his freedom (….) after only six months of detention”, lamented the lawyer for the victim’s family, Me Saïd Harir. “This decision (…) is incomprehensible for the family of the deceased”, adds the lawyer in a press release, arguing that the investigation is only in its infancy: the planned confrontation with a direct witness did not take place, as well as the reconstitution. Stressing that “the testimonies evoke a racist individual”, the lawyer considered that “living in a disadvantaged neighborhood and being of color should never be a justification for losing one’s life”.