She despised insults. Vanesa Campos Vasquez puffed out her chest and raised her head when threatened. In 2018, this trans sex worker, pillar of the community of trans and Peruvian sex workers in the Bois de Boulogne, was killed in her workplace by a bullet in the chest. Since then, his face has become the symbol of the violence suffered by his former colleagues. This Thursday, the prosecution requested sentences of fifteen and twenty years’ imprisonment against two defendants.
Advocate General Olivier Auféril asked for the heaviest sentence, twenty years of criminal imprisonment, for Mahmoud Kadri, 24, named by all of his co-defendants as the one who shot Vanesa Campos on the night of August 16 to 17. 2018, which he disputes. Against Karim Ibrahim, 29, also referred to the Paris Assize Court for “organized gang murder”, the representative of the prosecution requested a reclassification in “complicity in murder” and a fifteen-year prison sentence.
punitive expedition
The Advocate General also requested five-year prison sentences, one of which was suspended, against six other defendants aged between 23 and 34, for their participation in the punitive expedition that led to the murder or for the theft of the murder weapon. The latter’s lawyers began to plead in the afternoon, asking the court not to “validate the prosecution’s case” and not to “to be caught up in general condemnations” required, without distinction of the personalities of each. For the eight defendants of Egyptian origin, the Advocate General also requested a ban on carrying weapons and a ten-year or permanent ban from French territory.
36-year-old Peruvian Vanesa Campos was killed “in sordid conditions”, near his place of work, in one of the most remote places in the Bois de Boulogne, devoid of public lighting, recalled the representative of the public ministry. She had found herself “naked, defenseless, faced with the arrival (of a) pack”a group of at least a dozen young men, armed and “galvanized by a feeling of omnipotence”, underlined Olivier Auféril. Some admitted that they robbed the clients of South American trans sex workers, which forced them to hire men to protect them. That night, the ringleaders wanted “regain control of the territory by putting an end to the resistance of prostitutes”pointed out the Advocate General.
Insults, spitting and even threats… The trial opened on Tuesday in an extremely tense atmosphere. Over the course of the day, several incidents caused by the defendants had broken out within the confines of the Paris Assize Court. In this case where “several versions clash”from “contradictory, evolving versions”the representative of the prosecution indicated to proceed “by deductions”. Who fired the stolen pistol a week before in a policeman’s car when he was with a prostitute? Is it Karim Ibrahim, as asserts – and he is the only one – Mahmoud Kadri, for whom his co-accused “have agreed” to convict him?
This “conspiracy theory seems to me not very credible”swept the Advocate General, for whom “Mahmoud Kadri is the shooter” and Karim Ibrahim, who has “had a driving role in the organization of the expedition”his “partner in crime”. Olivier Auféril requested that the accusation of “organized gang murder” accused of a third man, Aymen Dib, be reclassified as participating in a criminal association, “no element” having, according to him, confirmed that he had indeed stabbed the victim.
His indictment of two and a half hours, after fifteen days of a chaotic hearing, was interrupted by insults towards him from one of the defendants, Mahmed A., who was once again expelled from the box. His lawyer, Michaël Bendavid, implored the court to “rise above [du] distressing sight” given by his client, who was not “not part” of the gang of thieves and therefore had no “no motive”. “There is no indication that he was present at the time of the violence”insisted Michaël Bendavid, pleading the acquittal. “There is a principle: doubt benefits the accused”, also hammered the defense of Karim A, who denies any participation in the violence. Defense arguments continue Friday. Verdict expected on Saturday.