Accused of having attempted to murder a fellow prisoner with a bent fork, Andy Vambanu’s appeal trial opened on Tuesday April 11 before the Moselle Court of Appeal. The verdict is expected Wednesday evening.
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Today at 06:30 | updated today at 08:37
The appeal trial of Andy Vambanu, 29, opened on Tuesday April 11 in Metz, before the Moselle Assize Court. He is accused of having attempted to murder one of his fellow prisoners by hitting him with a fork and strangling him at the Nancy-Maxéville detention center in April 2018. Sentenced in January 2016 for the murder of Tahiry Robert in the parking lot of a hypermarket in Metz-Borny, in May 2013, he was serving a 15-year prison sentence there.
escape attempt
During the trial at first instance which was held in Nancy in October 2021, Andy Vambanu had tried to escape by jumping over the box of the accused. He was finally tried in January 2022 and received a 20-year prison sentence while the Advocate General had requested 12.
“His primary intention was to kill me,” the victim said on the stand. Now 29 years old, and released from detention, the former fellow prisoner assures us that he is just there “to relate the facts”.
twisted fork
On April 30, 2018, Andy Vambanu entered Toufik*’s cell by surprise. “I heard the noise of the lock from the outside activated by the guards like every morning, then a second noise,” he recalls. Andy Vambanu just locked the door from the inside. A punch in the face and Toufik falls back on his bed. Vambanu climbs on top of him, punches him in the face, kicks him with a twisted fork in the back of the neck and tries to strangle him. It is another prisoner who hears the cries and gives the alert. They will have to be three to separate them. “I saw myself dying,” said Toufik, more shocked than seriously injured, even if the areas targeted by the blows were vital areas.
Two packets of pasta
The reason for this outburst of violence? A canteen affair. Two days earlier, Toufik had refused to comply with a request. “I find it hard to believe that it came to this for two packets of pasta and a bottle of Coke”, laments the victim. Few explanations are to be expected from the point of view of the accused who, at the end of the morning, asked to return to his cell.
* The first name has been changed
