Indicted and returned to the assizes by the JIRS of Nancy for the robbery in May 2019 of a jewelry store in Doubs (20 kg of gold and 10 kg of platinum), Lahouari Founas, 27, seriously ill, requests his reinstatement. release for medical reasons. Decision this Friday.
Eric Nicolas – Jul 27, 2023, 5:29 PM | updated on Jul 28, 2023, 5:37 PM
“We are here to obtain the release of my client, because of the manifest incompatibility of his state of health with being held in pre-trial detention”. This Thursday, Me Raphaël Chiche, a Parisian criminal lawyer who now has his habits in the East (he obtained the release of a large drug trafficker a few weeks ago in Colmar for a procedural error by a judge in instruction), pleads before the Chamber of instruction of Nancy. His client? Lahouari Founas, 27, who was not present at the hearing.
The Bisontin had been arrested in September 2019, four months after the irruption of a commando of five hooded and heavily armed men in the workshops of the jewelry “Frank & Person”, in Châtillon-le-Duc (Doubs). Six employees had then been kidnapped and the criminals had decamped with 20 kilos of gold and 10 kilos of platinum. Injury. More than a million euros.
Judged in 2024
The investigation had identified a dozen suspects and the first arrests had taken place on September 18 and 19, 2019, in Besançon and Annemasse. Arrested on this occasion, Lahouari Founas had managed to escape, jumping from a window on the first floor, during the search of his home in Thise, near Besançon. He was arrested again on February 1, 2022, after a 17-month run. Indicted in particular for theft in an organized gang and criminal association, Lahouari Founas is also suspected by the courts of having participated in a burglary with a ram car of an Afflelou store in Châtillon-le-Duc (Doubs), the September 6, 2019, and an attempted armed robbery in another goldsmith company, in Voray-sur-l’Ognon (Haute-Saône), September 16, 2019. In November 2022, he was returned to the assizes , like ten other defendants. The trial should be held in Nancy in 2024.
Lahouari Founas is currently temporarily detained in the solitary confinement area of the Beauvais remand center (Oise) and is, according to his lawyer, the subject of “inhuman and degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights”. Jurisprudence indicates that in detention, “health must be adequately ensured, in particular medical care by the administration”.
A doctor recommends removal of the gallbladder
“For many months, my client has been suffering from acute abdominal pain, causing incessant bloody vomiting, which prevents him from eating properly, a situation of which he complains tirelessly to the prison guards and medical staff. “, explains Me Chiche. In September 2022, the lawyer had notified the Metz prison center, where his client was incarcerated. Two months later, in December 2022, Lahouari Founas underwent a thorough medical examination and was then diagnosed with congestive gastric fundus. Transferred to the penitentiary center (CP) of Beauvais, he had however still not been the subject of adequate care despite the persistence of these pains, which his lawyer officially notified the director of the establishment in May 2023 .
On June 28, Founas had a medical examination from which it emerged that his gallbladder was obstructed by “a bile sludge with microcalculi”. Two weeks later, the CP Beauvais doctor recommended that the prisoner undergo surgical removal of the gallbladder as soon as possible, under penalty of the appearance of infectious complications that could lead to sepsis. “My client, who has struggled for months to obtain necessary medical care, is now at risk of a life-threatening blood infection. There is a real medical emergency,” said Me Chiche.
“The urgency does not seem to me to be characterized”
Philippe Renzi, he opposed this release. “The emergency does not appear to me to be characterized in relation to a risk of death”, assured the Advocate General who, at best for the detainee, is considering a medical expertise.
“The prison administration has remained deaf to medical injunctions,” continued Me Chiche. “What do we do now? Do we procrastinate by saying that he is not on the verge of death? We ask by closing our eyes? “. Then, solemnly: “I simply hope that, if something serious happens to Mr. Founas, everyone here will be able to look at themselves in a mirror…”. Decision reserved for this Friday morning.
#Nancy #Suspected #stolen #gold #Doubs #suspect #requests #release #health #reasons
