The Haute-Garonne Assize Court is judging this week one of these deadly settling of accounts which bloodied the Pink City between 2019 and 2020.
A contract on the head of the victim?
On February 21, 2019 at 9:15 p.m., allée de l’Adour in Colomiers, Samy Verdier, a notorious drug trafficker, was assassinated, hit by 4 bullets in what looked like an execution. The perpetrators shot in the back. His car, a Seat Leon, was found with the headlights on and the engine running. Him lying a few meters away. The victim knew he was threatened, as evidenced by the loaded weapon found near the body. Samy Verdier had escaped a deadly vendetta a few months earlier in a PMU in the Papus district. Another day, hooded men arrive at the hairdresser where he has just, a few minutes before, to be refreshed. But not cool yet. Have killers just missed their target? Possible. The investigators are convinced that Samy Verdier, just released from prison, wanted to take back “his” deal point in the Tabar city, which rivals have monopolized.
Few material clues but a plethora of witnesses
The judicial police and its technical and scientific counterpart found few clues at the scene of the crime. No video surveillance. On the other hand, the witnesses abound: 14 people in all. Some of which will reveal that a Scénic managed to flee. The police will quickly put a name on the driver: Mehdi Verdier, the brother who scampered through the Allée des Baronnies. He will be taken into custody. The two alleged shooters, Youssef Varela de Barros, 28, known as “Ursaf”, and Aboubeker Berchane, 27, known as “Boobs” will be arrested in 2020. One arrested by the gendarmes in Saint-Jory; the second in Spain.
For Me Pierre Dunac, lawyer for the civil party, their guilt is not the shadow of a doubt, “ they are obviously the executors […] sponsored people but who are extraordinarily dangerous, capable of shooting anyone for very little money » he explains, while his client’s brother was “a man who made himself respected by his physique: a romantic thug, unlike the other two who are small second-rate strikes”.
Victim and accused from the same neighborhood
Director of investigation, forensic pathologist, ballistics expert and chemist succeeded each other at the helm on Monday. The lawyers were jousting. For the defence, in particular Me Alexandre Martin, the two accused have no motive “the investigation reveals that Samy Verdier attracted enmity, he had enemies who wanted to kill him apart from those we are accusing today, who were friends and who had no reason to kill him since Verdier was no longer at the head of the deal point”. Samy Verdier was indeed an acquaintance of the two co-accused, all natives of the same district of Colomiers. The latter deny the facts but not their presence at the time of the shooting. Their version: they had met with the Verdier brothers to organize a “coring”: theft of narcotics or money from rival traffickers. However, they appear for murder in an organized gang and attempted murder in an organized gang. They risk life imprisonment.
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