the amazement of the Bordeaux firefighter despite the apologies and the condemnation of his attacker

Le Figaro Bordeaux

“We just had to stop for five minutes to get my staff to safety. It’s not the end of the world.” Three days after his violent attack, the lieutenant of SDIS 33 is still in shock. Moving forward limping to the bar to testify due to knee pain due to the attack, the firefighter – who has been practicing since 1980 – assures the Bordeaux court: “I had a long career, difficult operations, but there I do not understand.“A stupefaction always in order, even after his attacker was ordered to pay him 2000 euros. Guilty of “violence aggravated by the use of a weapon“, Azis B., who admitted the facts, was sentenced to one year in prison. He will do it for the first half at home, under an electronic bracelet, and for the other in the form of six months of probation. A sentence accompanied by the loss of his driving license with a ban on retaking it in the next six months, a 5-year ineligibility sentence, an obligation to compensate his victim and to train, and to citizenship course.

Back to the facts. This Saturday at 1:56 a.m., Azis B., who was driving a loaned BMW in good standing, knowingly chose to restart while the firefighter was talking to him from the side of the passenger window, his hand resting on the hood. “I felt that he wanted to pass at all costs, I repeated my request several times“Recalls the one who ordered the extinction of a fire of garbage cans spreading on the facade of a house on the road from Toulouse to Bordeaux. In vain. The accused, “in a hurry to return home after celebrating the breaking of the Ramadan fast“, is impatient. The forty-year-old, who ensures “that he was in a benevolent state of mindand sober, then knocked him down and threw him to the ground before fleeing without looking back. Three days of ITT were diagnosed with the 63-year-old firefighter, who filed a civil action. The video of a witness had helped confuse the motorist who had 12 points on his driving license. According to our sources, a little later in the intervention, another lady forced the passage without causing any injuries.

For the five minutes he didn’t want to wait, Bernard S. will have to take the time to heal physically and psychologically.

Guillaume Sapata, lawyer for the attacked firefighter

“When I left, I slapped myself, I wanted to go back. This is the second mistake I made (that evening, editor’s note)”, affirms the forties in the box of the accused. The first one ? “Idiocy is wanting to pass and go beyond this risk zone. Seeing the flames, I thought I was in danger, it’s the biggest mistake of my life“, swears Azis B.. From his first speech, the defendant apologized. “I didn’t mean to hurt you“, he regretted, a tremolo in his voice looking at his victim, “I have felt remorse for four days. I’m namelessly stupid and I broke my code of honor“. A mea culpa supported “an apology to the firefighters who are useful to this country“, Which ended up annoying the main interested party.

General “misunderstanding”

Key word of the trial “misunderstandingwas on everyone’s lips, in both camps. ““It annoys me,” Bernard S. has just told me when he heard Azis B.’s apologies again. The answer he brings, I do not believe for a second. For the five minutes he didn’t want to wait, my client will have to take the time to heal physically and psychologically.“Thundered the firefighter’s lawyer. For Master Sapata, the defendant acted in this way “because he thought it was going to pass“.

The prosecution subscribes to this speech: if he presented himself to the police station after being called on Sunday morning, that is not enough to testify to the good faith of Azis B.. Whereas he had warned the friend who had loaned the car fromthe incident“, he needs “more than 24 hoursto indulge. And “if he hadn’t, it would have taken only a few extra hours for the police to find him“, Underlined the parquet floor of Bordeaux. The Public Prosecutor thus requested 15 months in prison, nine of which were suspended, while the civil party requested 2,500 euros in respect of his damage and the reimbursement of his legal costs.

In this file, described as “surrealistby the defense lawyer, there is nothing to justify the action of Azis B.. Usually, “lack of license, insurance, consumption of alcohol or narcotics, in short, something to hideled an individual to act in this way, argued Maître Henri Gata. According to him, his clienttwistedwhen his father died three years ago. Since, afterbankruptcy» and three financial condemnations in Belgium, in particular for «misuse of property“, the forties at the RSA takes care of his mother”seriously illin Gironde.

“He should have turned around, stayed put, waited for the police“, again recognized the member of the Bordeaux bar, pleading not to increase the sentence of a man whose”the remorse is absolutely not feigned“. At the end of the court, when his victim did not want it, the one who had just been sentenced waited for her to reiterate his apologies. But according to the exchange heard by Le Figaro, the time for forgiveness had not yet come. Azis B. will have to wait.