2023-04-28 01:11:07
They will have to face their own trial again. Two renowned criminal lawyers, who had benefited from a partial release during their trial in Paris for complicity in an attempted fraud in the judgment, will appear on appeal, announced the Paris prosecutor’s office on Thursday April 27.
« M. [Robert] Dawes [le client des deux avocats] appealed against his conviction, following which the public prosecutor’s office cross-appealed”, said the Paris prosecutor’s office to Agence France-Presse. The drug trafficker had been sentenced to five years in prison for “attempted fraud in judgment”, “complicity in forgery in public writing” and “complicity in breach of professional secrecy”.
“In order for the court to be able to consider the elements as a whole, it has been seized of the entire decision”, said the prosecution. This means a return to square one for Mes Joseph Cohen-Sabban, 69 years old, and Xavier Nogueras, 42 years old.
At first instance, these two tenors of the Paris bar had been found guilty of breach of professional secrecy and both sentenced to a fine of 15,000 euros. But they had been acquitted on the count of complicity in attempted fraud in judgment after having produced a forgery in defense of one of their drug-trafficking client during his trial at the assizes.
At the end of the trial before the Paris court, on April 18, the two lawyers had received a ban from practicing for three years but fully suspended. The fact that two lawyers find themselves on the bench of the defendants, in the same way as their former client, the British drug trafficker Robert Dawes, had aroused the incomprehension of many professionals.
“Negligence” and “casualty”
At first instance, the prosecution had demanded three years’ imprisonment, including one year suspended, against Joseph Cohen-Sabban, two years in prison, including one year suspended, against Xavier Nogueras, and a five-year ban on practicing. without reprieve for both councils.
Joseph Cohen-Sabban is a regular in organized crime cases, and Xavier Nogueras, a noted figure in the megatrials of jihadists, including that of the attacks of November 13, 2015.
While denouncing “serious negligence”, “the glaring lack of professionalism” or “the casualness” of the two lawyers, the Paris court had recognized that “nothing allows[tait] to state with certainty that they knew that the documents [produits devant la cour d’assises pour innocenter leur client] were false”.
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