At the assize court in Paris,
It took nearly 60 hours for the Paris Assize Court to deliver its verdict. On the night of Wednesday to Thursday, shortly after midnight, Rédoine Faïd was sentenced to fourteen years of criminal imprisonment for escaping, in 2018, by helicopter from Réau prison, in Seine-et-Marne. The famous robber remained almost impassive as he heard the president read the deliberations in a monotone voice in front of a packed room. It must be said that even before this conviction, the 51-year-old man could not hope to get out before 2046. Since sentence confusion does not exist for escape sentences, if he does not appeal – this decision is still under study – this new line in his criminal record now takes him to 2060. He will then be 88 years old.
The attorneys general had requested 22 years of criminal imprisonment against him. “Fourteen years, when you know the conditions of his detention, it’s not nothing. It’s not because we gain eight years that we can be satisfied,” insisted one of his lawyers, Me Marie Violleau, recalling that he had been held in total solitary confinement for around ten years. . The court acquitted him of “aircraft hijacking,” one of the crimes he faced the most. The decision is purely legal: for it to be retained, there must be at least a passenger. However, in the helicopter, only the pilot was taken hostage. According to his lawyer, upon hearing the verdict, the famous robber above all felt “satisfaction for his loved ones”, the sentences being overall lower than those required.
10 years of criminal imprisonment against his brother Rachid, the man with the “grinder”
Of the three members of the commando, only his older brother Rachid, 65, admitted to having participated: he was the one who cut the prison locks with a grinder. A decision dictated by “blood ties”, refusing to see his brother “buried alive”, between four walls. “It’s the only cheat” of a life, insisted this man with marked features who has “always worked”. Against him, the attorneys general had requested eighteen years of imprisonment. The court finally sentenced him to ten years in prison. Pressed against each other, his wife and daughter show a slight smile of satisfaction: he has already served half of this sentence in pre-trial detention.
Same sigh of relief among those close to Rédoine Faïd’s nephews, the brothers Ishaac and Haroune Harizi. Despite their constant denials, they were found guilty of helping their uncle escape but were sentenced to 8 and 6 years in prison when the public prosecutor asked for 15 and 10 years. Hearing these sorrows, Rédoine Faïd does not hold back a broad smile. He who regularly asked his loved ones for forgiveness for having “embarked” them in such an affair, had sworn from the first day that he wanted to “take responsibility from A to Z”.
Brahim Faïd sentenced
The surprise came from Brahim Faïd, another brother of Rédoine Faïd. This father of five children with a clean record was given a one-year suspended prison sentence even though the attorneys general had requested acquittal. It was he who was in the visiting room with the robber when the commando burst in. Completely stunned by the situation, claiming that he had been used, he had always been aware of the escape plan. If the attorneys general seemed to subscribe to his story, the court considered that he could not ignore the project. On the other hand, she followed the landlady’s request for acquittal, considering that she had been “morally constrained”.