He claims to have wanted to “protect” the Nice supporters whom he carried as passengers, and nothing else. The VTC driver indicted on Monday for the stabbing murder of an FC Nantes supporter denied on Tuesday via his lawyers “any homicidal intent”. The man, aged 35, is at this stage being prosecuted for the intentional homicide of the supporter, which occurred on Saturday evening near the stadium just before the L1 Nantes-Nice match.
“He firmly denies having had any homicidal intent and hopes that the judicial information will allow a fairer legal classification of the facts,” write the driver’s lawyers, Benoît Poquet and Julien Plouton, in a press release. “He is devastated by the tragic outcome of this disastrous evening”, which took place in a “context of ultraviolence which he had never imagined having to one day be confronted”, they assure.
The driver allegedly received “many blows”
The lawyers emphasize that their client “was working that evening as a VTC driver when the convoy in which he was traveling was surrounded and then violently attacked by around a hundred people, including some hooded individuals, upon his arrival near the stadium. » “These individuals clearly wanted to fight with his passengers whom he tried to protect” and gave the driver “numerous blows (punches to the face, glass bottle hit in the head, etc.)” as the demonstrate according to them “videos placed in the file”.
According to the Nantes public prosecutor, Renaud Gaudeul, this driver admitted during his custody to having hit the victim with a knife, in self-defense according to him. He claims to have used a weapon belonging to another supporter present at the scene. He is also indicted for extortion with a weapon because according to the prosecutor, while accompanying his three passengers to their hotel after the incident, the man demanded “several hundred euros” from them to compensate for the damage to his vehicle.
A second VTC driver was indicted for intentional violence as well as for tampering with evidence, in this case the video recording with which his vehicle was equipped and which had been deleted. The prosecutor also requested the opening of an investigation into aggravated violence and destruction targeting the Nantes supporters involved in the brawl.