Problem son of actress Firmine Richard (“eight women“, “Romuald and Juliet“, “The Profs 2“…) where he lived, Keneff Leauva, 40, is being prosecuted for having in April 2021 stabbed to death an Internet user, Mamadi T. alias “Moussa VR6”. The latter had come to his home in the early morning to explain himself after an altercation in front of 500 spectators on the live video application Bigo Live.
“He has credibility to uphold“
Faced with an opponent physically more imposing than him, Keneff Leauva, twelve convictions on the criminal record, including already two for violence linked to social networks, is in an unfavorable balance of power. Gold “he has credibility to uphold“, notes Advocate General Alice Dubernet in her one-hour indictment.
“Keneff Leauva has only one life, only one identity: it’s that of social networks, it’s that of the clasher“, retorts the representative of the prosecution. “He couldn’t lose this face-to-face.“
Obsessed with his tough-guy online image, this ex-VTC driver has made a name for himself in the small “live-streaming” community with his propensity for clashes and fights. The progressive escalation of violence has already cost him a stay in prison and a phalanx torn off during a fight with another Internet user.
“A clash leads to a new clash, in a runaway that could only end in a dramatic way“, laments Alice Dubernet, worried about “the total absence of questioning” of the accused, who appeared in court still mired in his childish digital intrigues.
“punches“
Asked earlier in the day about the facts, Keneff Leauva maintains that he did not want to kill his former friend, with whom he had fallen out over an obscure woman’s story.
When Mamadi T. shows up at his home in Pantin at 6:00 a.m., Keneff Leauva is white-hot. Putting on jeans and a down jacket over his pajamas, he grabs a long kitchen knife from the dish rack and slips it into his clothes before going to meet his opponent.
“There was pressure. He says to me “Come on, come on, come on. We will talk you and me”. For me it was a trap to hit me and show me on the networks“, says the accused in jeans and a pink sweater in the box. “Afterwards people would have laughed: “this is the second time that Keneff the brawler has eaten a wank on the networks!”“
He only drew the gun, he said, after a blow from Mamadi T. that shattered his jaw and caused severe pain. There, “I saw red.”
The rest is told by the unbearable grainy images taken from a video surveillance camera, which the assize court dissects shot by shot.
We see Keneff Leauva pursuing the victim, knife in hand, in the street. Injured, Mamadi T. tries to escape holding his stomach but he falls. The two men struggle on the ground for long minutes.
In a desperate gesture of survival, the victim grabs the ceramic blade with the whole hand, to the point of almost cutting his thumb and breaking the handle of the knife.
Hit by three stab wounds in the chest, his liver perforated, it will take barely an hour for Mamadi T. to be declared dead.
“I didn’t think it was fatal blows, I thought it was punches. I said to myself “I put spades, he’s going to be sewn up”“, with
justifies Keneff Leauva.
The verdict is expected Friday at the end of the day.
By Alexandre Marchand
