2023-12-15 03:56:19
Drama in front of the Haute-Saône Assize Court. The second week of the hearing ended in confusion on Thursday after Nicolas Zepeda collapsed in his box, crying, claiming to have been attacked by prison guards. The hearing was suspended and the proceedings will not resume until Monday.
The incident occurred while the Chilean, retried on appeal for the assassination of his ex-girlfriend Narumi Kurosaki in December 2016 in Besançon, was questioned about his personality and explained the conditions of his detention when he was at the solitary confinement in the city remand center.
“I’ve experienced horrible things, I’ve seen horrible things that I don’t condone,” he explained. He notably claimed that an auxiliary, an inmate who works for the prison administration, would have been hit by guards “simply because he did not want to clean the cell where there had been a suicide attempt”.
“They didn’t let me go”
“Did you come under any pressure after that?” », questions the president. Nicolas Zepeda is worried, says that he wrote twice to his lawyer at the time to denounce these alleged facts but that the second letter was opened by the guards who would have read it in the corridor: “J I heard my letter was being read in the hallway, you bastards! », exclaimed the accused.
“From that moment on, they didn’t let go of me (…) it ended with an attack, a supervisor punched me,” he added. He then clutches his head and cries loudly, before collapsing in the box, in front of a stunned courtroom.
VIDEO. “The family comes without any hope”: Nicolas Zepeda tried on appeal for the alleged murder of Narumi Kurosaki
After a moment of hesitation and confusion, his father Humberto stands up and his mother Ana asks the court: “And human rights? They treated my son like a dog! », before the president suspended the hearing and the accused left the box. After an interruption of around twenty minutes, the hearing then resumed briefly, while Advocate General Étienne Manteaux responded to the mother of the accused.
“To Mrs Zepeda who is giving us Human Rights lessons, yes, you Madam: the first human right is the right to life and I remind you that your son is accused of assassination. Moral lessons are good! », Launched Manteaux before the debates were definitively stopped for the day.
“Manipulator”
After the hearing, the attorney general clarified that he was aware of a complaint from Nicolas Zepeda for the alleged attack of which he was the victim when he was detained in Besançon prison. This dated back to January 2022, before the first instance trial where this complaint had not been mentioned. It was dismissed because it was “not objectified”, according to Mr. Manteaux.
The personality of Nicolas Zepeda, who had been sentenced to 28 years’ imprisonment at first instance, had previously been scrutinized by two experts, one of whom presented him as a “manipulator”, “a person who has a tendency to manipulate others”, and for the other as an “ordinary man”. The Chilean, who celebrated his 33rd birthday on Monday, was then asked about his personality. He began to tell the story of his childhood, speaking excellent French, speaking quickly but in speech that was sometimes a little disjointed.
“Sometimes I’m like a sponge, I learn everything,” he said, recounting his happy childhood in Chile. His speech slows down when he talks about his departure for his studies in Japan, and the president has to encourage him so that he agrees to talk about his meeting with Narumi at this time. The debates then focused on his incarceration upon his arrival in France, after his extradition in July 2020. There, the Chilean broke down while recounting with a serious air the attack of which he was allegedly the victim, before getting his head between the hands and burst into tears.
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