The trial of two renowned criminal lawyers opened on Monday January 23 before the Paris Criminal Court, tried for having produced at the end of 2018 before the assizes, false documents favorable to a drug trafficker whom they defended.
Complicity in attempted fraud
My Joseph Cohen-Sabban, 69, and Xavier Nogueras, 42, are regulars in the courtrooms but it is, this time, without their black robes that they took their place in the courtroom to respond in particular to complicity attempted fraud in judgment. Both contest this accusation, which has caused a stir in the profession.
Read alsoIn Marseille, justice looks into a vast scam of horse meat
They are suspected of having committed this offense in December 2018 during the trial before the Paris Assize Court of the Briton Robert Dawes, which ended with his conviction, which became final, to twenty-two years of criminal imprisonment and 30 million euros in fines.
A suspicious Spanish prescription
Considered one of the biggest drug traffickers in Europe, Robert Dawes, 50, then appeared in the file called “Sincerely yours“, born of the seizure of 1.3 tons of cocaine on September 11, 2013 in an Air France plane connecting Caracas to Paris.
At the opening of the proceedings, his lawyers had produced a supposed Spanish order presenting as illegal a capital telephone tapping for the prosecution and provided transcripts of telephone tapping and sound systems aimed at exonerating the accused.
However, these documents had been described as “fakeby the Assize Court and, a few weeks after the verdict, an investigation was opened in early 2019 into these suspicions of falsification.
Trial until February 7
The investigations led, in February 2022, to the dismissal for trial of the two lawyers – also prosecuted for violation of professional secrecy -, of Robert Dawes, who appears detained, and of Evan Hughes, one of his relatives suspected of being the author of the forgeries.
Residing in Spain, Evan Hughes will however not appear in Paris because he has not “managed to raise the funds to pay for the trip“, said one of his lawyers at the hearing. “It’s interesting“, quipped the president of the court Isabelle Prevost-Desprez.
After a long reminder of the facts, Robert Dawes was questioned about the links he has with this compatriot judged by default, whom he had met at the beginning of 2000 in Malaga and who was helping him with his administrative procedures in Spain.
Was he his right-hand man as the prosecution suggests? From his box, surrounded by hooded police, the defendant assures that Evan Hughes only played the role of “point-of-contactwith his lawyers and family while incarcerated in France.
The exchanges were then lost in the denials of Robert Dawes who notably ensures that he does not use a cell phone in prison. “I am a particularly guarded prisoner, everything is controlled“, he defends himself, trying to guide the debates. “You are neither the prosecutor nor the judge, so you answer the questions, it will be fine», the tance Isabelle Prevost-Desprez. End of trial on February 7.
HAVEALSO – Mexico: arrest of Quintero, one of the most wanted drug traffickers by the United States