Notorious Marseille Drug Lord Faces Trial After Decade on the Run

Nicknamed "Souris," Kamel Meziani is suspected of being the mastermind behind at least two double murders in 2016 and 2021. The head of one of Marseille’s largest drug trafficking networks, and described by the Marseille police as an "eminent member of the city’s narco-banditry," he will be alone in the dock of the Aix-en-Provence assize court on Monday, reports 20minutes.

The judges and investigators have been searching for this criminal, convicted several times for minor offenses (driving without a license, theft, trafficking...) and accused of drug trafficking and murder, for almost ten years. Registered by the Central Office for the Repression of Illicit Drug Trafficking (OCRTIS), as well as his associate Ali Sadoni, still wanted, Kamel Meziani is involved with the latter "in two cases of settling of scores in February and March 2013 and indicted under judicial supervision with the payment of a bail of 150,000 euros in a triple attempted assassination perpetrated in August 2013."

In 2016, he takes advantage of his judicial supervision to flee to Oran, Algeria, via Barcelona. On August 24, 2018, an international search and arrest warrant is issued against him, leading to his arrest on February 1, 2019 at Marrakech airport, from where he was extradited to France on December 31 of the same year. With the help of his lawyers who contested the extradition procedure, he manages to escape justice a second time. Released on July 8, 2020, he was sentenced by default on July 10 to fourteen years in prison, then six months later, to thirty years in prison by the Aix-en-Provence assize court for "complicity in murder" in a case of settling of scores.

Suspected of being involved in the murder of two men, which occurred on the night of August 21 to 22, 2021, in the Cité de la Marine bleue, Kamel Meziani was arrested on August 31, 2021 at the Fleury-en-Bière toll booth. For lack of evidence, he was acquitted in April 2022 of the charge of criminal association in the case of the triple attempted assassination in August 2013. The trial that opens this Monday will focus on the murders of 2016 (KFC Plombière) and 2021 (Marine Bleue). For his lawyer, Raphaël Chiche, the indictment of his client "is based exclusively on the statements of an anonymous witness." If the court grants this request, Kamel Meziani could regain his freedom and escape justice once again.