Hassan Kherbach Murder Trial Opens: Family Seeks Justice After 9 Years

The trial opens this Tuesday, July 7, before the departmental criminal court of Melun. For Hassan Kherbach’s family, it is the culmination of an interminable wait, marked by pain, anger, and the feeling of having been left without answers for far too long.

On Bladi.net : Tragic World Cup Celebration Turns Fatal: Driver Faces 20 Years for Teen’s Death

Hassan Kherbach, 47, father of three children, died in the night of July 13-14, 2017 in Nangis, Seine-et-Marne. According to case details reported by Le Parisien, he was struck while attempting to calm a violent altercation in the Mare-aux-Curées neighborhood.

The main accused, Suna E., 54, appears until July 10 for violence with use of a weapon resulting in death without intent to kill and unlawful carrying of a bladed weapon. She faces up to 20 years in prison. Her husband and their son are also being tried, notably for aggravated violence and carrying a bladed weapon.

On the evening of the tragedy, Nangis was celebrating Bastille Day a few hours early. After the fireworks, a fight allegedly broke out in a parking lot between Suna E.’s son and young people from the neighborhood. The father reportedly went down to help him, before being attacked himself and losing consciousness.

An intervention that turns tragic

The mother allegedly then arrived at the scene, armed with a knife and a butcher’s steel. She allegedly made gestures to repel the attackers. It was in this confused context that Hassan Kherbach, who was returning from an evening spent with friends, approached to try to calm the situation.

Under circumstances that the trial must now clarify, the father found himself facing the accused in a doorway. He received several blows, one of which struck a femoral artery. He collapsed in a pool of blood.

Transported by emergency services to Provins hospital, Hassan Kherbach died at 2:20 a.m. A few days later, nearly 600 people participated in a silent march in Nangis, in the presence of his eldest daughter Sarah, then 10 years old, who carried her father’s portrait.

The release of Suna E. after less than a year in provisional detention, for medical reasons, had reopened the family’s wounds. Hassan Kherbach was described as a well-known and appreciated man in this town of nearly 9,000 inhabitants.

On Bladi.net : Tragic World Cup Aftermath: Trial Begins for Teen’s Death in Montpellier

Nine years later, his loved ones hope that the hearing will clarify what really happened that evening. His wife Malika had summed up the family’s wait in a few words: she wants "justice to be done."