Appeal Trial Begins for Moroccan Man Convicted in 2017 Montceau-les-Mines Murder

Tarik Attar is back before the courts. He had been sentenced to 30 years of criminal imprisonment with a 12-year security period before the Saône-et-Loire Assize Court on June 15, 2020, for the murder of Valentin Amrouche in 2017, a 27-year-old man whose body had been found in Montceau-les-Mines. Dissatisfied with this verdict, his lawyer Olivier Forray had appealed in the hope of obtaining a light sentence.

It all started with a dispute between Tarik Attar and Valentin Amrouche over a theft case involving Amin, Valentin’s friend and Tarik’s nephew. Things quickly got complicated: exchange of blows then of knife blows. Valentin Amrouche succumbed to his injuries. His body was found in an apartment in Montceau-les-Mines on August 3, 2017. After withdrawing money with his victim’s bank card, Tarik Attar had in the meantime gone to Morocco with his children before returning to France.

Designated as the main suspect, he had been placed in pre-trial detention. During his first trial, he had partially admitted the facts, but had claimed not to have intended to kill Valentin. It was an "involuntary" murder, he had argued, believing that his sentence was heavy. But the president of the assize court had explained that the length of the sentence was motivated by the seriousness of the facts, Tarik Attar’s criminal record, already tried for acts of violence, and finally the behavior of the defendant after the murder.

While Tarik Attar’s lawyer expects a reduced sentence, Valentin Amrouche’s grandparents hope for its confirmation, says France Info. They firmly believe that the convicted person deliberately killed their grandson.