“We followed the traces of blood”, relate the police during the first day of the trial

“We followed the traces of blood on the ground”, from the park in the heights to the entrance to the Gallo-Roman theater, where Axelle Dorier was found lifeless. In the main room of the Rhône Court of Assizes, in Lyon, the words of Jérémy Villeneuve, a policeman, resound and leave a silence. He recounted this Tuesday, before the judges and jurors, his intervention on the night of July 18 to 19, 2020, where he discovered, with the rest of his team, the body of this 22-year-old young woman, dragged over more 800m by Youcef Tebbal, driving a Golf, and Mohamed Yelloule, his passenger. “As we had been called for a dog hit, we first thought it was that of the animal,” recalls the peacekeeper.

The police officers were the first people heard for the opening of the trial, after the personality interrogations of the two defendants. Tasked with sharing what they had seen based on their role in the case, they sometimes used terms that were difficult for the rest of the hearing to hear. Commander Isabelle Huguet also recognized “the emotional difficulty of the file, even for police officers”.

Just before these remarks, she had just specified that “the trace was continuous, from the place of celebration to that of discovery” and that “on the road, there were pieces of clothing, jewelry, flesh, hair “. The one who led the investigation in the act added that she had found “a large quantity of blood at 534 m” as well as “pieces of fingers”. “In our profession, we must ignore it,” she concluded.

Could the driver avoid Axelle?

“It was still a human body but it lacked a lot of biological elements”, meanwhile qualified Frédéric Chevassus, major and director of the rest of the investigation, present during the autopsy. But just behind those who succeeded at the bar stood the family of Axelle. And this reminder of the facts with the description of the findings in a very precise way was “too hard” to hear for his mother, who left the room crying. The father held back his tears.

Reading this file is “pure horror”, later said their lawyer, Gabriel Versini. “And we are only at the beginning because we are going to enter into terrible discussions where we are going to talk about the horror of a dismembered, dissected, desecrated being. It will take a lot of strength to bear the unbearable, ”said the lawyer.

The rest of the testimonies were not easier to hear for the family, who simply hope “that the truth will be told” during this trial and who do not believe in the explanations of the two defendants. The debates then focused on their responsibilities, and more particularly, on the intentions of the driver of the Golf that evening. Did Youcef Tebbal have the possibility of avoiding Axelle Dorier in this narrow street of the Fourvière district?

An incident with a dog as a “trigger”

The event that “degenerated everything” according to witnesses, was the “incident” between a Twingo and the dog of a guest at the twins’ party and Axelle Dorier, who were celebrating their respective birthdays in the park near of the basilica. At that time, it is around 3:30 in the morning. A group of “ten to twenty people” walked towards the Renault and attacked its occupants. At the wheel of this vehicle, Emilie Kudla, who was on the scene to meet the occupants of the Golf, whom she had met via Snapchat.

In front of the court, this 24-year-old woman today remained confused in her words, very moved, tears in her eyes and broke down when she recounted the “violent attack” she had suffered on July 19, 2020, when the guests l exited her vehicle “through the window” before punching her in the face. While she was on the ground, she saw Axelle being hit twice by “the driver of the Golf who could not have seen her” when he accelerated sharply “to flee” the second time. The driver nevertheless assured that Youcef Tebbal had enough room to “pass by her”, which her adviser David Metaxas refutes. He had told the commander that his client was “forced to go straight ahead to leave.”

The driver of the Twingo clarified that the young woman had placed herself in front of the Golf so that the driver did not leave “before the arrival of the police”, called for the incident concerning the animal. The lawyer then asked: “Is it possible to avoid a person if he is in front of the car? »

“If it hadn’t been for this violence, we wouldn’t be here tonight”

The debates at the end of the day mainly focused on these degradations and altercations between the group of friends of the Dorier family and the young people transported, before Axelle’s death. “It was not necessary to carry out so much violence”, concedes Ilan Gharbi, witness. He admitted that “if they had not existed, we would not be here this evening”, using the words of Maître Dumoulin, lawyer for Mohamed Yelloule. The defense of the two defendants repeatedly stressed this “tense” climate from which their client wanted to escape. David Metaxas, counsel for Youcef Tebbal, asked each witness the same questioning, seeking to know “who had hit the cars”, without any names being disclosed.

The lawyer, with a slightly mocking tone, mimed in front of the same witness “the three monkeys”, implying that “no one saw anything, heard anything or saw anything” about the violence on the vehicles. A point which nevertheless did not escape the President of the Assize Court or the Advocate General. They both questioned “the relationship between the occupants of the Golf and the events related to the dog” and pointed to the lack of accuracy in the witness statements. On several occasions, it was recalled that they “had sworn to speak under oath”.

At the end of the first day of hearing, this very offensive defense of the defendants’ lawyers “shocked” Axelle’s family, who could not express themselves “it was so hard”. For the second day of the trial, eight witnesses, including the victim’s twin brothers, who are civil parties, will be heard.

source site