An unusual procedural problem. On Thursday, the trial of Farid H., accused of having killed his ex-partner with around thirty stab wounds, in May 2019, in Villeneuve d’Ascq, near Lille. In fact, this is a trial which will open for the second time, almost a year later. It had already been held in part, in October 2022, before being postponed on the last day of the hearing, as reported The voice of the North.
Present at the reconstitution
The reason for the referral is quite rare and concerns a very specific point of law. One of the assessors (magistrates who assist the president of the court) in fact realized during the hearing that she was present during the reconstruction of the crime, in 2021, while she was, at at the time, student magistrate. Thus, the assessors never know the identity of the accused before the trial. It was therefore by viewing the photos of the reconstruction, in full audience, that the memories came back to him.
The code of criminal procedure is quite rigid on the subject: to be able to be part of the court which judges a case, the magistrates must not have participated in the investigation of this case so as not to be influenced in any way whatsoever. The trial therefore had to be postponed for this extremely rare reason. It should last three days.
2023-09-18 13:32:34
#Trial #femicide #unfortunate #coincidence #caused #postponed
