The Aix-en-Provence Assize Court on Friday sentenced four young people from a Marseille city where a 16-year-old teenager had been tortured for wanting to sell a few grams of drugs to sentences ranging from five to 25 years in prison. without the backing of the network.
While running away from a home in Chartres (Eure-et-Loir), the victim was caught in August 2019 dealing a few grams of cocaine and cannabis without the authorization of the managers of the network in the Félix-Pyat city, located not far from the center of Marseille.
The teenager was then delivered to a group of around fifteen people who beat him before taking him to an abandoned premises where, one night, he would be kidnapped and beaten.
In the middle of the night, two men, described as drunk, tortured him by burning his body around forty times with a cigarette and with a blowtorch on his genitals.
“A life that has stopped”
Only 16 years old at the time of the events, the teenager appeared paralyzed in front of the Assize Court during the trial, without being able to attend the proceedings, apart from his testimony during which he spoke of “a life which ‘is stopped’.
While he always contested the facts, the Assize Court found El Kabir M’Saidie Ali, 24, guilty of kidnapping accompanied by acts of torture and barbarity and sentenced him to 25 years of criminal imprisonment. , in accordance with the requisitions of the prosecution.
His lawyers had called for his acquittal, citing the weakness of the evidence against him. A witness heard under X had named him, adding that the two torturers had “acted for pleasure, for fun”.
During the investigation, El Kabir M’Saidie Ali displayed great coldness towards the ordeal endured by the teenager. When an investigator showed him the photo of the victim’s horrific injuries, he turned it around: “There are more serious things in life, that’s not my concern.”
“Go into the night”
For his lawyer, Tiphaine Rémy, “he has built a shell for himself in this neighborhood, the most impoverished in France, where violence is a daily occurrence and, for him, not being interested in others is a matter of survival instinct” .
Also convicted of kidnapping with torture and barbaric acts, Abou Bacari Madi, 23, was sentenced to five years in prison. While he had always claimed not to have been on the scene, he admitted during the trial to having “passed outside the premises” the day after the victim’s ordeal.
When the latter, damaged and staggering, tried to escape, the group in which Abou Bacari Madi was found told him: “You shouldn’t leave now, go into the night,” he explained to the court. “We cannot base a conviction for kidnapping on this sentence alone,” said his lawyer Frédéric Coffano during the hearing.
“In the city, we are obliged to show solidarity with the network”
Also demanding his acquittal, Karim Ahamada, 30, was sentenced to six years in prison for kidnapping. He was the very first to be identified by the victim as having taken part in the first violence.
Sentenced to five years in prison for kidnapping, Hichem Mchangama, 22, was the only one of the four accused to quickly admit his participation in the first violence. Apologizing, the young accused could not explain why he had carried out these blows, at the request of a friend who was a member of the network.
“In the city,” explained his lawyer, Mr. Karim Bouguessa, “at one time or another, we are obliged to show solidarity with the network even if we are not part of it. »
In November 2022, a fifth defendant, aged 17 at the time of the facts, was sentenced to ten years in prison by the juvenile court. He was accused of hitting the victim and making him snort cocaine.
Many young people, attracted by the mirage of easy money, are recruited by drug trafficking networks in the South-East of France and particularly in Marseille where the war for control of drug dealing points has left more than 40 dead. since the beginning of the year.