Life for the killers of Rudy, 15, shot during a settling of scores
“Jimmy” and “ZZ”, the two accused of the murder of Rudy, 15, shot dead in November 2016 in Marseille in the style of settling accounts of narcobanditism, were sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday by the court of Assises of Bouches-du-Rhône. The convictions of Khadim Thiam, 28, and Samir Zerouali, 26, were a security measure accompanied by 22 years, as requested by the prosecution in the morning.
The jurors of the Aix-en-Provence court fully followed Advocate General Christophe Raffin, according to whom only a “sentence of definitive social elimination” could be applied in the face of this “massacre”, “the execution of ‘a 15-year-old hobbled, shot in the chest and finished off like a dog,’ in the hills of Marseille. If other teenagers were killed at drug outlets in Marseille, they had been the victims of shootings, recalled the magistrate: with Rudy, “this is the first case where we directly attack this way to a minor of 15 years ”.
A decisive testimony shattered the omerta
The accusation was based mainly on the testimony of Nourdine, a friend of Rudy, who confirmed before the jurors to have seen the two defendants take the teenager, the hand on the shoulder. “From there he was only in a tunnel that brought him to his death. His fate was sealed by those designated by Nourdine “, estimated the Advocate General, saluting the courage of this witness, who” hung a target in the back and has no interest in saying inaccurate things “.
This testimony came to break the omerta traditionally responsible for settling accounts in Marseille was also at the center of the defense pleadings, which demanded an acquittal.
“We are delirious”
Seeing Rudy walking away with Samir Zerouali and Khadim Thiam did not sign their participation in the assassination, insisted the defendants’ lawyers. “It’s full of doubts, we have no elements, no certainties,” pleaded Me Roch Lusinchi, the defender of “Jimmy”: “Who led him to the scene? Who killed ? Who set the fire? We are asking you for a penalty of elimination for such fragile things ”. The absence of material evidence was also brandished by Me Philippe Jacquemin, the defender of Samir Zerouali, alias “ZZ”: “It is emptiness in terms of evidence. We are in the delirium, in the incantations of a small band of friends ”.
For the prosecution, Rudy actually died for nothing. Since a settlement of accounts the previous month, in the parking lot of a KFC in Marseille, the rumor was that the small coalman of the city Jean-Jaurès had given the killers the starting signal. One of the victims was a “cousin” of Khadim Thiam, victim of a drug turf war.
The defendants will appeal
Until the end, the two defendants, anchored in Marseille narcobanditism and with a very heavy judicial past, shouted their innocence. “I am reproached for having shot a young man of 15 years attached”, launched Khadim Thiam: “It is not real, one cannot accuse me of that”.
Recalling that during the last three years he has already been sentenced to a total of thirty years in prison, Samir Zerouali implored the jurors “not to judge (him) in relation to (his) reputation”: “I do not have no reason to kill anyone, I have already taken thirty years, so one more sentence! But I can not confess to please. They have both announced their intention to appeal the verdict.