Algerian Gang Sentenced for Exploiting Moroccan Minors in Paris Tourist Robberies

The verdict is in. Tried in particular for aggravated human trafficking and drug trafficking by the Paris Criminal Court, six Algerian nationals, aged 23 to 39, were sentenced on Friday to prison terms of one to six years in prison, accompanied by fines ranging from 5,000 to 8,000 euros. They were also ordered to jointly pay 20,000 euros to each of the twelve minor civil parties as compensation for the damages suffered. Five of the defendants, some of whom were under an obligation to leave French territory prior to the trial, are permanently banned from French territory.

During the trial, the defense lawyers "juxtaposed two miseries, that of the adults on trial and that of the child victims", evoking the "common trajectory" of the victims and the defendants, their "traumatic migratory journey", which left them "in a situation of great wandering upon arrival in France", reports BFMTV. Clothilde Humbert, lawyer for Abderraouf S., evoked the "daily survival" in the squats, "the problems of electricity, keys, people" that emerge from the (wiretapped) conversations. Not to mention the need to pay the rent and the difficulties of a life "grappling with slumlords". All the defendants, "marked, damaged by the street", acknowledged "choices dictated by great precariousness", the trafficking, the thefts, even the blows given to minors at the Trocadéro, said the lawyer Yasmine Ouaou.

For the court, the facts are "extremely serious" given "the damage caused to the physical and psychological integrity of the young people". If the existence of a "hierarchical and structured network" was not proven, the investigation had indeed shed light on a "horizontal exploitation system", it estimated, before pronouncing its judgment.