All that for that… Two trials and still no culprits. The five defendants involved in the assassination of Khaled Arbouze, who was shot eight times in the center of Nancy on the morning of April 30, 2016, were once again all acquitted on Friday, this time by the Moselle appeal court.
–
Today at 21:30
Once again, it will be necessary, this Saturday morning, almost 7 years after the assassination of Khaled Arbouze, shot like a dog with eight bullets (4 in the back then 4 at a very short distance) on April 30, 2016 in Nancy, to have a huge thought for the family and loved ones of the victim. Justice, which has just passed a second time, two years after the trial at first instance in Nancy, still does not know who killed this thirty-something, father of two children, former trafficker, of course, but who had been reinserted.
Seven-hour deliberation
This Friday, after a 3-week trial and a deliberation as long as a day without bread – 7 hours -, the Assize Court of Appeal of Moselle, chaired by Nicolas Faltot, indeed confirmed the full wheelbarrow of acquittals that his counterpart from Meurthe-et-Moselle had pronounced in February 2021 when this thorny affair first came to the helm.
Returned to the assizes for murder, Farès Ettaki, on the run since May 2016, and Billy Mangin were acquitted, in accordance with the requisitions of Christophe Mira, the Advocate General, who had only been able to note, from the start of the trial, that the SRPJ could not put a name to the two shooters out of the Citroën Berlingo. The magistrate had indeed requested this Wednesday their condemnation for complicity but, there again, checkmate. The Moselle jurors considered that the mere presence of the DNA of the two men in the Berlingo, as well as that of Ismaël Arahal, also dismissed for complicity, was not enough.
7 years for Ettaki on the run in Morocco
The three men were therefore acquitted of this count of prevention for which the prosecutor, wobbly file under his arm, had required 18 years of imprisonment. The court considered that Ettaki, Mangin and Arahal had intervened at one time or another to equip, with opacifying films on the rear windows, the utility vehicle purchased on April 2, 28 days before the death of Khaled Arbouze, but that they had no knowledge that this Berlingo was ultimately going to be used for an assassination. For this association of criminals, they were sentenced more or less to their sentences at first instance: 7 years for Ettaki, 5 years for Mangin and Arahal.
Returned to the assizes for complicity in assassination and acquitted in Nancy, Mohamed Benabdallah and Fouad Ziad saw the court confirm this decision, in accordance with the requisitions of the general counsel. The two men were also acquitted of criminal association, for which Christophe Mira had claimed 6 and 10 years. For the prosecution and the investigation services, this second snub simply has no name.
In the cold-case department
“The involvement of the defendants has been confirmed but we still do not know who killed Khaled Arbouze”, reacted M Berton. “We are disappointed, necessarily, because we wanted to have the answers that we had not had in Nancy”, continues M Lecornet. “This assassination will go unpunished.” “Relieved” by her own admission, Ms. Serre, who defended Arahal, underlined this “verdict rendered in the name of the French people which sanctions unexploited leads and flaws in the work of the police. We still have a thought for the family of Khaled Arbouze: this affair is now a cold-case…”.
