Suspect in New Year’s Eve Shooting Near Montpellier Charged with Murder

"The facts are tragic, and our client is devastated," said Luc Abratkiewicz and Florian Medico, the lawyers of the suspect, a father of three children, a self-employed entrepreneur at the head of a small delivery company in Avignon. "He explained this gesture that he did not control. The public prosecutor’s office had qualified the act as involuntary manslaughter. The judge, carried away by emotion and without any motive, indicted him for murder," they deplored. She ordered the incarceration of Mohamed Z., 33, under this criminal qualification, reports Midi Libre. The suspect thus faces up to thirty years in prison.

The facts. Sitting at the wheel of a parked car near a nightclub, after spending New Year’s Eve night with friends, Laura was killed by a bullet to the head. Mohamed Z., one of the victim’s friends, admitted to having shot her by accident. "According to him, when he was taking back his weapon, he had forgotten that the magazine was already in place and it was while handling it that the shot went off," the Montpellier public prosecutor, Fabrice Bélargent, specified on Thursday, January 2.

Another young woman, who was in the vehicle at the time of the shooting, had confirmed this version of the facts. According to the prosecutor’s explanations, the suspect illegally possessed a Glock 9mm automatic pistol, as he felt threatened since his cousin had been shot dead in the context of a settling of scores in Avignon.