Bobigny District Court. (Drawing) – A. GELEBART / 20 MINUTES
- A mother is suspected of having sought to assassinate her former companion and father of their child whom she accused of violence.
- The six accused for murder and complicity face life imprisonment.
- The trial is scheduled to last until April 16.
At the Assize Court in Bobigny,
At 18, Amandine Soave imagined herself a lawyer or peacekeeper. “To help my fellow citizens”, insists the thirtysomething fair complexion, long brown hair held back by a braid, behind the thick window of the box of the accused of the Assize Court of Bobigny, in Seine-Saint-Denis. Since Tuesday, she has been on trial for having ordered the assassination of her former companion, the father of her son, one evening in August 2017. The couple, already separated for several years, were walking in the forest of Bondy with their child then aged 3, when a man, all dressed in black, appeared from behind the thickets and shot the abdomen of the victim, now paraplegic.
Who is accustomed to the courts knows it very well: there is not a typical profile of accused, sometimes it does not take much for “Mr. Everyone” to find himself in the box. And this case is the illustration. Five defendants appear alongside Amandine Soave, including her father and brother. “They followed me in my suffering, they were embarked on my drama”, breathes the young woman. The first is suspected of having given him money to carry out his disastrous plan, the second of having played the intermediary. None of the defendants in this case has a criminal record, almost all of them have children, were perfectly integrated into society.
“Protect the widow and the orphan”
“It’s incomprehensible,” whispered Rudy Poignet’s mother at the helm, strangled sobs in her throat. Three years later, she still struggles to understand how her son, a former soldier who admitted to being the shooter, was able to adhere to such a criminal project. “He’s someone who is always very present for others, when it was necessary to help, it was always him”, she insists.
A few meters from her, the accused, staring at his feet, wipes away his tears. His sister wants to believe that it was precisely – and paradoxically – because he was as empathetic as he was influential that he got involved in this affair. According to her, he accepted this “contract”, negotiated at 10,000 euros, because he was convinced that the victim was a violent man, especially towards his son. “My father transmitted to me this desire to protect the widow and the orphan,” he insists.
She accuses her ex-husband of violence
If Amandine Soave admits to having ordered the assassination of Jimmy C., 38 years old today, she affirms to have above all sought to free herself from its grip and its violence. In front of the personality investigator, she recalled the first punch, struck in the face, a year after the start of their relationship. “He told me it was my fault, I ended up apologizing,” she confides.
During their investigations, the investigators found four handrails filed by Amandine Soave between April and October 2016 as well as two procedures for voluntary violence in 2014 and 2016. Her pregnancy, in 2014, did not improve the conditions. things, quite the contrary. “Jimmy wanted me to abort, for the first time I opposed him,” she assures in a calm, almost detached voice.
“He knows I’m in prison, he knows why”
According to his account, even if they no longer lived together, his former companion continues to exercise physical and psychological violence against him. Violence that their son would have witnessed, she assures. Sitting in his wheelchair, Jimmy C. seems annoyed, he tricks his hands, nods his head: since the start of the day, we sometimes have the feeling that it is he, the blame.
However, if two expertises concluded that Amandine Soave’s responsibility related to this toxic relationship was lessened, no harassment by telephone, recent violence or threats against her new companions was brought to light at the time of the facts. .
This summer, he won custody of their son, almost three years after the latter witnessed his attempted assassination. Amandine Soave, in pre-trial detention, never asked for her release. “Prison, I deserve it, even if it’s not easy every day,” she insists. If she says today that she understands the gravity of her gesture, believing “that other solutions were possible”, she did not apologize to the victim, unlike the other defendants. Like her accomplices, she faces life imprisonment.