“ Be careful what you write…“In the entourage of the defendants, we hardly appreciate the publicity surrounding this affair. Conversely, the justice system sent a strong signal this Thursday to the attention of the protagonists of the clan wars which are played with bullets real in the Toulon area.
The criminal court went beyond the requests of the public prosecutor by sentencing Salim Maachi and Angelo Aquilani to 15 years in prison for “aggravated violence” (1) and “participation in a criminal association”. The prosecutor had proposed sentences of 9 and 12 years of imprisonment.
The defendants, aged 29 and 24, were found guilty of being the perpetrators of an ambush against a member of a rival family, the victim of firearm injuries on February 15, 2021 in Toulon. Facts “ exceptionally serious“, explained the president of the court who also took into account the criminal records of the two drug traffickers.
A bundle of presumptions
No DNA, no criminal weapons, testimonies subject to caution… Their lawyers had pleaded for acquittal with the benefit of the doubt, denouncing a bundle of clues “ which, taken separately, do not provide conclusive evidence in themselves“My Frédéric Monneret and Aïckel Hachfi immediately announced their intention to appeal.
The defender of a third man, Abdelrazak Marzak, received a partial acquittal, regarding the aggravated violence. The “anonymous information” damning the two other defendants never mentions his name, particularly emphasized Me Mathieu Nadal. His client received a 7-year prison sentence for “criminal conspiracy”.
The court also sentenced the three defendants to a ban on residence in Var and Bouches-du-Rhône for five years (once their prison sentences have been served).
A “still relevant” conflict
The ambush of February 15, 2021 took place in the context of a conflict over control of deal points in the Sainte-Musse district to the east of Toulon. Two teams, one from the city of Les Œillets and the other from La Poncette, have been competing against each other since 2016. Intimidation shots, gunshot wounds then murders (there have been half a dozen deaths to date). From reprisals to counter-retaliations, hostilities are now intertwined with a war of vendetta.
From 2020, the opposing parties competed for the market for the resale of narcotics in the city of Val-des-Rougières in Hyères. The Œillets clan would have dislodged that of La Poncette with the help of Marseillais. In this section, Salim Maachi, Angelo Aquilani and six other defendants were sentenced in 2022. The two Toulonnais were arrested on April 14, 2021 in “ a conspiratorial apartment” in Hyères.
“ These wars are still going on, we see it very recently“, observed prosecutor Amandine Sbragi while Val-des-Rougières has been in the grip of an increase in intimidation shots for several days.
1. The criminal acts of “attempted murder” were reclassified by the courts to relieve congestion in the Assize Court.
2024-02-29 19:59:01
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