Teen Charged with Murder in Marseille Student’s Stray Bullet Death

The young man is accused of being the author of the Kalashnikov shots that led to Socayna’s death in September. The 16-year-old, who denies the facts, was indicted for "murder" on Friday, reports Libération, recalling that the accused was arrested on Monday with three other people who, for their part, "were released".

"The person currently referred would be the shooter," said Nicolas Bessone, the Marseille public prosecutor, in a press conference, adding that "since you have a willingness to commit murder with premeditation, it is murder, even if you hit a person who has nothing to do with the traffic and who was not targeted." The teenager, "little known" to the justice system, was 15 years old at the time of the events. The search carried out by the investigators at the home of his girlfriend resulted in the seizure of a Kalashnikov "with an engaged magazine", a 9mm pistol, 9mm ammunition and nine phones.

"Elements of telephony have made it possible to locate him at the crime scene or at least in the neighborhood," explained the prosecutor, stating that telephone conversations "implicating" the teenager were also intercepted. However, the analysis of the Kalashnikov seized revealed that the weapon was not "used during this murder." "We are in a case of narchomicide since the investigations carried out on this organized crime murder have led us to determine that the arrested person [...] is involved in the drug trafficking of Château-Saint Loup," the prosecutor insisted.

Socayna, a law student, was hit by a stray bullet in the head on the night of September 10, while she was in her room at her parents’ home, on the 3rd floor of a building located in the Cité Saint-Thys, in the 10th arrondissement, in the southeast of Marseille. Transferred to the hospital, she died two days later.