81-Year-Old Ex-Convict on Trial for Attempted Murder in Agen, France

The profile of Mohamed Maghfour, 81, was at the heart of the first day of the trial opened before the Assizes Court of Lot-et-Garonne on Monday. The octogenarian, who had served a sentence of more than 10 years for murder, committed in August 1999 in Corsica, is on trial for attempted murder in recidivism. Armed with a knife, he had attacked on the morning of July 30, 2019 Sana (1), a woman to whom he was claiming money lent, "to the last penny" in the narrow Paulin-Regnier street in Agen, reports Sud Ouest.

"Mohamed Maghfour has no adaptive capacity, he cannot put himself in the other’s shoes. He needs rules, for things to be clear and he experiences the facts as an inversion of things. He tells me: ’I gave her money, and it’s her who complains.’ He feels it as an injustice," noted the expert psychologist. This "lonely" family man who broke off all contact in 2015 with his four children, born between 1987 and 1996 and his wife who live in Morocco, feels neither remorse nor empathy. He returns to what happened in August 1999. "As for that crime, I don’t even think about it. Because I was right to kill him," the defendant maintains.

The trial before the Assizes Court of Lot-et-Garonne continues this Tuesday, September 27, 2022. The civil party presents its version.