Cyril Hanouna, a cold pizza, a course in the history of slavery… During a tragicomic and highly charged hearing, the Pontoise court on Thursday tried a man for the assault of a black delivery man and racist insults that hit the headlines.
With a hot temper, the defendant, a 23-year-old interim forklift truck driver, was convicted of racial violence, public insults and apology for crimes against humanity. He received a total of two years in prison.
“We made my trial on Insta ‘(Instagram), on the networks, in detention, outside …”, annoys at the opening of the debates the defendant, quick to nervousness.
“There, today, it is true”, replies the president of the criminal court, willingly caustic, “so we calm down”.
On May 31, around 11 p.m., a delivery man from the UberEats platform came to pick up an order at Le Brasco restaurant in Cergy. In front of the establishment, Mourad D. is waiting for a pizza that he has ordered. The young man gets annoyed by the volume of the loudspeaker carried by the delivery man on his bike, and beats him up.
The tumult caused by this altercation alerts a black neighbor living above Brasco.
The woman calls out to Mourad D., who pours dumpers of racist insults on her while she films him with her mobile phone: “you negress, you dirty black (…) For eight hundred years, you have been sold as livestock “.
Mourad D. maintains that because of the night, he could not see that the neighbor was black. It is “by his accent (…) that I immediately recognized that he is a person who comes from the islands”, he says of the second victim, of Ivorian and South African nationalities.
Posted online, the videos turn the affair into hysteria. In a few hours, social networks are racing. The name and address of the suspect are thrown into the internet. An online jackpot is opened to put a price on your head. “We called my best friend and offered him 2,000 euros to tell him where I was! », Gets carried away Mourad D., that his lawyer moderates regularly.
Seen on TV
The defendant denies having fled, claims to have returned home peacefully with his order. False, denounces the neighbor who came to testify: “when he saw that the police were coming, he pretended to take his pizza quickly when it had been ready for twenty minutes”.
On the internet, Brasco – which has no connection with the facts – is inundated with comments accusing it of racism. The brewery is closed for security reasons. “A nightmare,” describes its owner at the helm. The court releases video of a threatening crowd gathered in front of the restaurant, believing the assailant to be employed there. “Get the guy out, we’re going to burn him down”, we hear in particular.
Less than 24 hours after the events, while Mourad D. has not yet been arrested, the popular show Do not touch My TV brings together on its set several of the protagonists of the case. “Cyril Hanouna has become a judicial police officer! »Chokes David Curiel, the defendant’s lawyer.
Prohibition of stay
Several associations fighting against racism and discrimination have brought civil action against Mourad D. Their lawyers plead by invoking great authors, by brilliantly drawing up a panorama of racism in France or by disserting on the legacy of slavery. “We are not in the National Assembly here …” sighs the president.
Did Mourad D. advocate slavery? No, only to state “historical truth”, argues his advice.
In addition to his prison sentence, Mourad D. was banned from staying in Val-d’Oise.
So the president of the tribunal gave him a final piece of advice: “you have offered to go away three times during this trial. It’s the best thing you can do ”.