“Like an endless gear. » Before the Hérault assizes, Kamal Hajjaj has a hard time explaining how he was able to kill one of his friends in Béziers, when he wanted to avenge his brother whom he wrongly thought was the death of him. agony.
In July 2019, aged 26, Kamal Hajjaj, who grew up in the impoverished Devèze district, had been operating a snack bar in the center of Béziers for three years. Without a criminal record, he still lived with his mother, worked “from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.”, sometimes went out with friends. Although he admits to having consumed “laughing gas”, he assures that he has always stayed away from the trafficking that plagues the neighborhood.
He thinks his brother is seriously affected
On July 16, he consulted a doctor for a migraine. On the way to the pharmacy, he learns that his brother, Karim Mouhou, who does not have the same name as him, has just been caught in a dispute with two neighborhood acquaintances with a notorious reputation, the brothers Mohamed and Rachid Lazgah. , who accuse him of having “carrot” narcotics from them.
During this altercation, which took place on the Devèze church square, Rachid Lazgah actually shot Karim in the leg. The injury is not serious but Kamal Hajjaj thinks his brother is more seriously injured, perhaps dead. “I imagined my brother dying and I rushed to the square,” he told the audience.
“I showed a lack of lucidity”
According to investigators, he then shot in the direction of Rachid Lazgah, but it was a young man unrelated to this whole story, sitting on a bench whom he mortally wounded. And it is his own friend, Yazid Cherita. “I showed a lack of lucidity. I felt like I was caught in a spiral,” the young man, who has been in preventive detention for four years, tried to explain on Monday.
However, he does not clearly admit that it was his bullet that killed Yazid. “Whether it’s me or not, I have a lot of responsibility,” concedes Mr. Hajjaj, who will be questioned more precisely about the facts during the rest of the trial, scheduled until Thursday or Friday. He faces up to thirty years in prison for murder. Rachid Lazgah is on trial for having fired in the direction of Kamal Hajjaj’s Audi which was fleeing and for the bullet fired into the leg of Karim Mouhou.