A 61-year-old man was on trial this Friday for having taken part in a stabbing fight in 2024 in Tonneins, based on a political disagreement. His opponent, suffering from significant psychological problems, had not been prosecuted. However, he delivered surprising explanations to the magistrates.
By calling the victim – but also the protagonist – of a stabbing brawl in August 2024 in Tonneins to the stand, a case that it had to examine this Friday, May 15, the Agen judicial court certainly did not expect to hear such a speech. “If we hadn’t been separated, I would have continued to hit him. And I would have killed him,” says the man with an imposing build coldly, facing the magistrates whose eyes widen.
The proceedings against him for aggravated violence with the use of a knife and in a state of obvious intoxication, like his rival, were dismissed due to the schizophrenic disorder from which he suffers.
Only the second man involved in this fight, whom the first accused of having given him “a stab in the liver”, therefore risked being sentenced. Between these two individuals, who met for the first time at a mutual acquaintance’s house, the situation degenerated when the conversation turned to a thorny subject: politics.
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“It’s attempted murder.”
“We talked about Marine Le Pen. There, he stood up. He attacked me”, certifies the one who became a civil party in the case, disguising the violence he exercised on the defendant in an attempt at self-defense.
His version of the facts goes against those of his opponent and a witness to the scene, both ensuring that the supposed victim is indeed at the origin of the first blows exchanged. “He punched me once, then twice. I passed out. I don’t see how I could have stabbed him. We had a great day. We drank. Certainly too much,” defends the 61-year-old defendant.
“Lies. Attempted murder. It’s attempted murder”, the second one keeps stammering, who actually had a “non-suturable” wound in the abdomen, not serious according to the doctor’s report.
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Bénéfice du doute
In this flood of contradictions, taking into account the medical examinations which demonstrate that both the defendant and his rival, both injured, engaged in this fight, the public prosecutor sides with the sixty-year-old to the point of requiring his release. “The witness’s version is in line with that given by the accused. There is nothing to demonstrate that the latter really carried this stab. He himself has a wound on his skull that could be caused by a bladed weapon. This knife, we therefore do not know who was actually holding him at the start of the argument.”
The judges, considering “that there is a doubt about the unfolding of the scene”, too important to enter into the process of sentencing with regard to Tonneinquais, followed the requisitions of the prosecution. The sixty-year-old’s criminal record will therefore remain clean, as it was when he entered the Agen courtroom.
