A 35-year-old man has been on trial since Monday March 21 before the Assize Court of Seine-Saint-Denis suspected of having killed a 23-year-old young man in 2016, after having stripped him at the exit of a techno festival. The body of the victim had been fished out several weeks after the events in the Canal de l’Ourcq.
The tragedy took place on the night of December 17 to 18, 2016. That evening, Maxime R., a 23-year-old engineer, disappeared on leaving a music festival organized in a hall on the edge of the park of la Villette, in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.
Came in the company of friends, the young man had been lost sight of by the latter arriving at the festival, shortly before midnight.
Around 1 a.m., video surveillance showed the victim, who had consumed ecstasy, leaving the place of the festivities.
Maxime had ordered an Uber to return but the driver had not found him at the location indicated. The sequence of events of the night of the drama remains in the state of a black hole that the court will seek to elucidate.
The fact remains that two months after that December evening, in February 2017, the body of Maxime R. was discovered not far from where he had been seen alive the last time. His body is fished out on the territory of the city of Pantin (93). In a state of decomposition, the corpse is removed from the Canal de l’Ourcq, under the tracks of the ring road.
We have since known that the very night of his disappearance, the victim’s bank card had been swallowed by a local ATM, after three bad codes during attempts to withdraw 120 euros.
An undocumented Tunisian known for acts of violence
Recovered by the investigators, the card ends up revealing the DNA of the suspect tried this week, a Tunisian in an irregular situation in France, known to justice under different aliases and for multiple acts of violence in the district of La Villette.
Arrested in the summer of 2019, Abdallah M. admitted having met Maxime R. that night but denied having killed him, explaining that he only hit “Arabs and blacks, not the French”.
During the first day of his trial, the Assize Court returned to the career of this undeclared worker accustomed to police custody and round trips to prison for brawls, thefts or damage under the influence of the alcohol in the north-east of Paris.
“Yes, sometimes I abuse drinking, but not every day,” retorted in the box this thirty-something with a shaved head, prominent forehead and surly look, to the president who lists his many feats of arms in drunk.
Prosecuted for theft with violence resulting in death, Abdallah M. faces life imprisonment. The verdict is expected on Thursday.