The alleged driver, who fatally struck a 48-year-old woman on Sunday in the parking lot of a restaurant, has already been convicted 13 times, including for repeat driving under alcoholic conditions.
The driver who fatally struck a woman in the parking lot of a restaurant in Béziers (Hérault) on the night of Saturday to Sunday was indicted for murder and placed in pre-trial detention on Monday, December 27, announced the prosecution.
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The qualification of assassination, which supposes premeditation, was retained because “threatening remarks allegedly made by the alleged driver before going to retrieve his vehicle and return to the scene at high speed“, Specified the public prosecutor of Béziers, Raphaël Balland, in a press release Monday evening.
The alleged driver of the vehicle at the time of the facts, a 46-year-old man, was indicted for murder, hit-and-run and drunk driving in legal recidivism. His criminal record bears the mention of 13 convictions, the most recent for recidivism of alcoholic driving in March 2019. He was also convicted of acts of violence, more than 20 years ago.
His alleged passenger, a 29-year-old man, was indicted for complicity in a hit-and-run. When the police arrested them, 200 m from the scene of the tragedy, he was driving the vehicle trying to get it out of the ditch into which they had fallen. Placed under judicial control, this man has already been convicted four times for traffic offenses, including three for driving under the influence of alcohol.
“Massive alcoholism”
The two men, both domiciled in Hérault, had overthrown a forty-something in the night from Saturday to Sunday, around 1:50 am, by storming out of the parking lot of a restaurant in Béziers. According to the first elements of the investigation, a fight would have previously opposed them to another group of customers of the establishment.
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The victim, a 48-year-old woman who came from Bouches-du-Rhône to celebrate a friend’s birthday, “did not know the two men implicated and does not seem to have had any particular contact with them during the evening», According to Raphaël Balland on Monday. She would have been 49 on Monday.
In front of the Béziers police officers, the driver of the vehicle and his passenger claimed to have no memory of the events, “due to their massive alcoholism“, Said the press release. They had drunk a first bottle of vodka in Montpellier, before drinking two more in the restaurant in Béziers. The alleged driver, who allegedly admitted to having done “a big mistake“, Had also smoked two joints of cannabis during this evening, underlined Raphaël Balland, while specifying that the maximum penalty incurred for murder is the criminal imprisonment for life.
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