Published13. August 2024, 22:09
Besançon (F): They argue over a chair, it ends in bloodbath
A Malian miner was beaten and doused with gasoline on Sunday evening in front of his building. In revenge, he stabbed his attacker, who died.
Image d’illustration.
IMAGO/Depositphotos
The origin of the argument is so trivial that it could make you smile. On Sunday evening around 11 p.m., while the heatwave was making the atmosphere stifling, there were two of them wanting to enjoy a bit of fresh air at the foot of a building in Besançon (F). But there was only one chair, so they came to blows. The irony of this tragic story is that it took place on Rue de l’Amitié in this neighboring French town.
The brawl left a 27-year-old man dead and sent a 17-year-old Malian man to pretrial detention. He was charged with “murder” and imprisoned on Tuesday.
According to his statements in police custody, this unaccompanied minor, previously unknown to the police, “was allegedly punched in the face and then sprayed with a petrol product and someone brandished a lighter,” declared the public prosecutor of Besançon, Étienne Manteaux, during a press conference.
Armed with a kitchen knife
Housed in the building by the Child Protection Service, the minor, “annoyed, angry (…) wanted to take justice into his own hands,” explained the prosecutor. He allegedly went back up to his room to change before going back down, armed with a kitchen knife, and stabbing his victim at least twice, one in the back, hitting the liver and a lung, and another in the abdomen.
He also slightly injured another person who tried to intervene, which also earned him an indictment for “violence with a weapon”.
Despite the rapid intervention of emergency services and his transfer to a hospital, the victim died from his injuries.
Stormy intervention
On Sunday, immediately after the incident, the police arrested the suspect in his apartment, as well as the two other minors living in the same place. The latter were briefly taken into custody before being released.
During their intervention, the police were attacked, which caused “material damage”. A police officer was also “injured in the nose” after receiving “a blow from a crutch to the face”, said Commissioner Déborah Boucher during the press conference.
