Jean-Luc Boujon, edited by Alexandre Dalifard / Photo credits: THOMAS SAMSON / AFP
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9:25 a.m., November 22, 2023
Tuesday, three days after the tragedy in Crépol, where a 16-year-old boy was killed during a village festival, nine people were arrested and placed in police custody. Two of them were arrested 20 kilometers from the village, in Romans-sur-Isère, and seven others in Toulouse, 500 kilometers from the knife attack.
The investigation is progressing in Drôme. Three days after the Crépol tragedy, nine people, including four minors, were arrested and placed in police custody on Tuesday. Two of them were arrested 20 kilometers from the village, in Romans-sur-Isère, and seven others in Toulouse, 500 kilometers from the knife attack which cost the life of a 16-year-old young man and was injured. 17 people. This Wednesday, two questions still arise: what were they doing so far from the scene of the tragedy? And who are these suspects arrested on Tuesday?
Attempted escape to Spain
Against all expectations, the person who was formally identified as the perpetrator of the fatal blows is not a minor. He is a 20-year-old young man who also does not live in the sensitive Monnaie district in Romans-sur-Isère. “He lives in the city center,” the Valencia prosecutor took care to clarify on Tuesday. No doubt to try to put an end to the very negative comments about the neighborhood that we have been reading for three days on social networks.
This young man is known to the courts for minor offenses. He has already been convicted three times for concealment of theft and prohibited carrying of a knife for which he was prohibited from possession. He was arrested Tuesday in Toulouse along with six other individuals. All of them had been monitored since Sunday by the gendarmes who quickly identified them. It seems that the plan of these seven young people arrested was to leave France and flee to Spain.
It was to prevent this that around forty men from the GIGN intervened on Tuesday afternoon, when they noticed that the young people were moving, after having, it seems, stayed for a while in a hotel. Toulouse. The investigators would have found documents there allowing them to be identified with certainty, in particular a bus card. These seven young people were placed in police custody then transferred Tuesday evening to their region of origin in order to be interviewed by the gendarmes of the Grenoble research section. Same regime for the two other people arrested in Drôme. Police custody which, in this matter, can last up to four days.
This Wednesday afternoon, a white march will take place in Romans-sur-Isère, where two of the suspects were arrested and where young Thomas, 16, who was stabbed to death at the Crépol winter ball, is at school. According to territorial intelligence, 1,500 people are expected at the white march.