Mohamed Kamel, 33, is accused of having seriously injured the septuagenarian with a cutter on March 17, 2021 in the streets of Montpellier. For no apparent reason. Except that he had been expelled from the prefecture where he wanted to renew his residence permit.
The trial of Mohamed Kamel opens this Monday, December 5 before the Assize Court of Hérault. This 33-year-old Montpellier resident faces life imprisonment for a repeat attempted murder.
7 p.m. End of the first day.
The debates close in front of the assizes of the Hérault. They continue on Tuesday, December 6 with the interrogation of the accused and the testimony of the miraculous victim.
4:30 p.m. – “Hindering the control of one’s actions”
Doctor Pénochet, expert psychiatrist, believes that Mohamed Kamel is criminally responsible, that he has no mental illness, but notes “an obstacle to the control of his actions”.
The doctor says he is “pessimistic” about the possible care and the problem of recurrence: “If we cannot calm our impulses, we are not immune to recurrence. There is a danger, with the sum of the legal precedents, the incarcerations were not enough to slow down recidivism. The sentences have not had the slightest effect and today his psychic functioning remains the same… He has no psychiatric disorders for him to be interned, the only possibility is the prescription of long-term neuroleptics”.
4 p.m. – “He knows he has a cutter in his pocket and he is angry”
Doctor Jean-Claude Pénochet, psychiatrist, continues his analysis of the accused. His diagnosis?
“There is a behavioral imbalance from late adolescence accompanied by repeated drug addiction. There are no serious mental disorders and he was lucid at the time of the events. He places himself in the position of a victim as soon as he is accused of an act of aggression, victim of the system, he has a deep feeling of extreme injustice, he is frustrated and angry. The meaning of his speech is “you’ll see if we don’t take care of me” says the expert.
He continues: “The outside world is angry with him, he is angry with the whole world, it is a primary reaction. He attacks the whole society, but he knows that he is breaking the law, he is a personality asocial and psychopathic, he knows he has a cutter in his pocket and he is angry”.
3:30 p.m. – “It’s a grenade without the pin”
At the bar of the Hérault assizes, Doctor Pénochet, psychiatrist, delivers an enlightening analysis of the extremely violent act committed by the accused. The latter, twenty minutes before the cutter attack, had been dismissed from the prefecture for the renewal of his residence permit because he had not made an appointment.
“The question of the motive is important for the victim and the jurors, we read the newspaper, we say to ourselves that it is the act of a madman…” asks Advocate General Damien Kincher.
“It has the dimension of a pinned grenade. It’s a blind and angry response to a scapegoat victim designated by chance, in fact, it could have fallen on anyone…” replies the expert. “It’s not an absurd act, he suffered frustration at the prefecture, he returns this frustration but not like in the schoolyard in kindergarten, with a cutter and an extremely violent act. It’s impulsiveness who falls free with this feeling of anger and frustration that exists in him. There is an impulsiveness practically uncontrollable”.
2:30 p.m. – “Between 2013 and 2021, you stayed out of prison for six months!”
Mohamed Kamel’s criminal record began in 2006 before the juvenile court when he was not yet 17 years old and it is peppered with a multitude of convictions. Aggravated or violent theft, insults, drug trafficking, violence, rebellion…
“Between 2013 and 2021 you stayed outside for 6 months, how do you explain these recurrences?” questions Me Luc Abratkiewicz, civil party.
“In prison, I see the psychiatrist, I’m fine, outside, I’m alone, things aren’t going well in my head, I’m becoming violent,” he says.
“There were quite a few incidents in prison,” continues the lawyer. At the end of July 2021, four months after the attempted murder, in detention, he tried to attack a fellow prisoner in the neck with a razor blade…
“He threatened to plant me, I defended myself,” he said.
“How do you explain this impulsiveness?” Mr. Abratkiewicz continues.
“They have always been violent with me, to defend myself, I respond with violence, I have my security”.
“You want to strike the first blow before receiving?” intervenes his lawyer Me Hayet Djefaflia.
“Yes”.
2 p.m. – “Prison, it destroyed me in my life”
The Assize Court is trying to understand how the accused Mohamed Kamel turned very early to delinquency. A few years after joining his mother in Montpellier when he was 11 years old.
“I didn’t know how to speak French, I was very late, I didn’t understand everything”. He stops college in 3rd, fails in a CAP of plumbing which he did not have and enters in delinquency before the first convictions fall when he is 17 years old.
“You had a residence permit for ten years, why didn’t you manage to get a job?” asks the president. Who continues: “The passages in prison that does not facilitate integration”.
“Prison, it destroyed me in my life, when I go out I feel alone, I wouldn’t mind going back to Algeria, but I’m fine in France, my future is here” replies the accused. Who claims to have less trouble with alcohol and admits to smoking “hashish and marijuana” and having also touched heroin and cocaine.
“How’s it going in prison?” continued the magistrate.
“Sometimes good, sometimes bad, with what I’ve done, I tell myself it’s bullshit, I think about it every day”.
11:30 a.m. – “On my nerves, I spoke like that”
The Court of Assizes unfolds the course of the accused, born in Algeria and arrived in France at the age of 11 where he benefited from the majority of a residence permit. A juror asks the question of the remarks he had made in police custody, violently attacking the “dirty French”.
“I have nothing against France, I have nothing against the French, I have French friends like I have Arab friends… I hadn’t smoked for 48 hours, I was in police custody, I I had the nerves, the policeman teased me, I said mean things… But I have nothing to do with it, I have no problem with it, on the nerves I spoke like that”
10:30 a.m. “I just intended to hurt the victim”
Mohamed Kamel, 33, black, white and blue tracksuit, talks about the facts at the very beginning of the trial. He disputes the attempted murder with a cutter against the director Alain Françon, without reason, in the streets of Montpellier: “I apologize to the victim, I had no intention of killing him, I had just the intention to hurt him” he says in a barely audible voice.
He had tried to kill the director Alain Françon in Montpellier: “He has a cutter, he is angry”