Man Brutally Attacked and Robbed in Bordeaux Convenience Store

“It is an attack of incredible violence”, poses M^eÉva Barouk, the lawyer for the main civil party: a 26-year-old young man, “hardworking, uneventful”, employed for almost three years in a Carrefour Express convenience store located on rue de l’École Normale, in the Caudéran district, in Bordeaux. On April 19,…

“It is an attack of incredible violence”, poses M^e Éva Barouk, the lawyer for the main civil party: a 26-year-old young man, “hardworking, uneventful”, employed for almost three years in a Carrefour Express convenience store located on rue de l’École Normale, in the Caudéran district, in Bordeaux. On April 19, his client was robbed when he was alone in the store and was about to close, shortly before 9 p.m. His attacker was a neighbor and regular in the business: Ahmed Zenatri, 45, returned for immediate appearance before the Bordeaux Criminal Court on April 21 for aggravated theft, the prosecution having decided to correct this case.

Attacked from behind, strangled with a rope and threatened with a knife, the employee saw himself die. “I thought it was the end, he testifies at the bar. He was squeezing the rope around my neck so tightly that it took my breath away. He threatened twice to kill me. Even today, I am in shock. At his side, the store manager, also a civil party, wipes away tears.

“I was stoned”

Voluble, clumsy, Ahmed Zenatri recognizes, except the knife, yet filmed by surveillance cameras. The entire scene, lasting five minutes, was also recorded. Drug addict, “fallen into crack for a few months”, specifies his lawyer M^e Christian Dubarry, the man claims to have taken action to pay off a debt of 1,000 euros with a drug supplier. His loot? Around 800 euros, almost entirely found at his home, where the police arrested him less than three hours after the fact. “I was stoned, I was not in my normal state. I am sincerely sorry, I never wanted to hurt this young man, ”says the defendant.

However, it seems not to realize, even “trivialize”, says prosecutor Sylvie Rodrigues. Listening to it, the rope would have “put itself badly”. “Are you saying it accidentally wrapped around the employee’s neck?” When we look at the images from the cameras, this is not what we see, ”intervenes the president, Charles Moynot. “I didn’t hit him, I just controlled him,” sinks Ahmed Zenatri.

Already known to justice, he had not yet been talked about for more than ten years. Acting, he was even preparing to sign a CDI electrician. But this evening of April 19, “he was ready for anything”, thinks the prosecutor who, “in view of the extreme gravity of the facts, of their repercussions on the victim who had a near-death experience”, requires 6 to 7 years in prison. Requisitions “worthy of an assize court”, denounces M^e Dubarry for whom the prosecution uses “a roundabout way to ask the court to do a job that is not his”.

Ahmed Zenatri was finally sentenced to 4 and a half years in prison, including one year accompanied by a probationary suspension of two years. He was taken into custody that evening.