Two former legionnaires were sentenced this Wednesday in Aix-en-Provence to eighteen and five years in prison for the rape and violent confinement of an Algerian LGBT activist. The Assize Court retained the aggravating circumstance of homophobia both for the violence and for the rape of which only Graham Shrubb, a 35-year-old Irishman, was accused.
The two former soldiers, stranded in Marseille, had invited Zak Ostmane to their hotel room on March 5, 2017 after meeting him in a bar in the Old Port. Kidnapped for two days, tied to a chair, beaten, covered with homophobic and racist insults and finally raped, he had finally regained his freedom after calling for help a crew of municipal police officers passing through the street.
“These convictions must serve as an example for any hateful person who tries to instill a homophobia that has no place in a normal society”, reacted the 42-year-old Algerian activist for the rights of LGBT people in North Africa. and in the Middle East who obtained refugee status in 2014 after fleeing Algeria.
Sentences lower than requisitions
The convictions are slightly lower than the requisitions of the Advocate General Christophe Raffin who considered that “Graham Shrubb committed the most serious acts and was the engine of the violence”. He had requested 18 to 20 years of criminal imprisonment against the former Irish soldier and eight to ten years of imprisonment against Alejandro Salazar, 29, who would not have participated in the rape.
Finally sentenced to five years in prison, the young Chilean was reincarcerated. He was released in March 2019 after two years in pre-trial detention. My Gaëtan Poitevin and Cyril Lubrano-Lavadera underlined how much their client was under the influence of Graham Shrubb, “perhaps this spirit of camaraderie of the Legion”, they suggested.
Graham Shrubb, in detention for five years, said living hell in prison. Described as a “leader” and a “hothead”, he had been dismissed from the Legion for his addiction to cocaine and episodes of violence. Referring to the “many gray areas and the multitude of doubts” surrounding the meeting of the two accused with the victim, My Anaïs Têtu and Olivier Lantelme had demanded the acquittal of Graham Shrubb for the rape.
I lost control and hit him
Because if he recognized the violence and thefts suffered by the victim, he always denied the rape. Asked about the reasons that would push Zak Ostmane to accuse him, the former legionnaire mentioned “a big advertising operation”: “This guy is trying to promote himself. He wrote a book and he was trying to get some publicity, ”he said to the court, unable to explain how his sperm could have ended up on the underwear worn by the victim.
Graham Shrubb explained his outburst of violence by touching Zak Ostmane who also allegedly tried to kiss him. What the latter has always disputed. “I don’t like being touched by men, I lost control and hit him. It’s because of what I went through as a child,” the Irishman said, referring to alleged childhood sexual abuse from his boxing coach.
A video of the kidnapping of Zak Ostmane had been shot by Alejandro Salazar and sent to the former companion of Graham Shrubb. Heard by videoconference from the Ennis police station, in Ireland, this woman was still in tears, five years after the events, at the mention of this video which she had immediately deleted. From a distance, she testified to having seen the victim bleeding, tied to a chair, whom the two men were threatening: “Tell them that you are gay! »
Defender of SOS Homophobia, civil party to the trial, Me Philippe Chaudon did not rule out the hypothesis of “two dormant legionnaires, fired from the Legion, who say to themselves: ‘Hey, if we were going to break the fag'”.