At the Assize Court of the Rhône
“The only thing I would like is for me to have some time left over to enjoy my grandchildren.” Before the jurors of the Rhône Assize Court retired to deliberate and decide on her fate, Rose Filippazzo spoke between sobs. This Friday afternoon, the Advocate General asked that she be sentenced to 16 years of criminal imprisonment for having killed her husband Michel Zirafa, with a bullet in the head on September 16, 2018.
“I’m not a dangerous person, she pleads one last time. I’m not a berserk who’s going to go out and shoot in the street.” Throughout the three days of hearing, the defendant’s defense endeavored to demonstrate that she was above all an abused woman, pushed to the limit, tired of “the repetition of humiliations” and “the accumulation of abuse” for 28 years. The testimonies of his daughters, heard on Thursday, came to accredit this thesis. That of his sister, too.
A constant “debasement of women”
They also made it possible to dive into the heart of the daily life of this “enclosing and withdrawn couple”, to highlight “the cultural influence”, the influence of their respective families. Two Sicilian families, cousins, whose children have married each other. Two families where “the debasement of women” was constant, systematic, also recalls the psychologist Xavier Renault in his testimony. Rose Filippazzo’s childhood and adolescence were “marked by submission”. The romantic relationship established early with Michel will ultimately have been only the reproduction of a pattern that has been perpetuated from generation to generation.
“The physical and verbal violence was similar” to that which she had already seen or suffered in her family, continue the psychiatric experts. His life can be summed up as follows: a “permanent submission to tyrannical male figures”. “The murderous act allowed us to get out of the vice”, supports Liliane Daligand, in turn evoking a process of influence.
But for Thierry Luchetta, General Advocate of the Assize Court, Rose Filippazzo “was not her husband’s puppet”. “She who likes to present herself as a weak woman was not devoid of character. She did not passively suffer things, he argues at the time of the requisitions. She does not have the behavior of an erased woman. She too is prone to outbursts of anger and outbursts of jealousy. »
“France is not Iran or Afghanistan”
Preferring to give little credit to the testimonies of the couple’s relatives, the magistrate believes that the accused prefers to “demonize her husband so that his crime is minimized”. “We kill first and we smear his memory,” he scolds. As for the violence suffered, he has “no opinion”, nor “no certainty”. “When you are able to kill someone, you are able to self-harm”, he blurts out to Rose Filippazzo, in front of the somewhat dumbfounded audience. “The habitual nature of the violence does not seem to me to be established”, continues Tierry Luchetta. The impossibility of divorce for fear of being killed, he does not believe in it, either: “France is not Iran, nor Afghanistan”. One by one, the members of the accused’s family leave the courtroom, as if exasperated.
“When a woman kills her husband or her companion, it is as serious as when a man kills his wife or his country. There is no need to make a difference. Nothing justifies a murder”, concludes the Advocate General. On the defense bench, Me Janine Bonaggiunta does not take off. “I don’t have the same reading of the file as you,” she replies straight away. These three days of debate allowed us to enter the intimate sphere of this couple. They shed light on the scourge of domestic violence, which is constantly on the increase. A woman dies every two days and that’s something. »
“This trial must be that of all women victims of violence”
At the time of pleading, the lawyer who has already defended Jacqueline Sauvage and Valérie Bacot, recalls that she has been fighting for 15 years against violence against women. “I am simply appalled. Mentalities do not change, the proof is, ”she launches in the direction of the Advocate General. “Giving a first slap is not a right. 38% of battered women have been murdered by their partner. My client has lived through horrors. This drama was caused by years of silence,” she insists, before concluding for the jurors: “This trial must be that of all women victims of violence.”
In the room, Philippe listens attentively. Rose Filippazzo’s lover came to testify on Friday morning to help her. “I’m not going to let her down,” he says, raising his back covered by his biker jacket. I don’t know what sentence she will receive, but I will wait as long as it takes. “Answer in the evening.