The escape of the alleged perpetrator of the fatal shot, aged 17, ended in Sarcelles (Val-d’Oise) on Tuesday at the start of the afternoon. First placed in police custody in the premises of the Nanterre judicial police, he was to be transferred to Mulhouse to be questioned by the local PJ, in charge of the investigation alongside the Colmar police station.
According to the Latest News from Alsace (DNA), the suspect, who lived in Colmar, was sentenced six times for cases of theft, concealment, damage to public property and narcotics. His last sentence, for drug trafficking, to fourteen months in prison, nine of which was firm, dated back to September 2021, said DNA.
His accomplice, just of age, was arrested on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in the company of two other people in the Europe district of Colmar, where the facts were committed, after a spectacular operation of police.
At the end of the afternoon on Tuesday, police officers from the Raid and the BRI, heavily armed and supported by their colleagues from Colmar and the CRS, invested and cordoned off a 15-storey tower, located 500 meters from the scene of the assassination.
For long hours, the inhabitants of this tower who wanted to return to their homes had to wait outside before being allowed to return shortly before midnight.
Then around 2:00 a.m., the handcuffed individuals, obviously quite young, calmly left through the main entrance, surrounded by the police and under the eyes of a few dozen onlookers before being taken away in police vehicles, noted an AFP correspondent.
Confirming these arrests, the public prosecutor of Colmar, Catherine Sorita-Minard simply indicated that «the investigations of the investigating judge are continuing», warning that she would not communicate again until Thursday «at the end of the day», to the end of custody.
– «We want justice» –
Visiting friends on August 14 in the Europe district, a republican reconquest district (QRR) located west of Colmar, Abdul Quayyeem Ahmadzai, a 27-year-old Afghan refugee, in France since 2017, was killed by a bullet in the chest.
Bothered by the noise of a scooter while he was with friends, he asked the driver to move away. The latter then insulted him, before returning «with several individuals».
A brawl then broke out between the two groups and, «while some of the protagonists dispersed, a shot was fired by an individual (…) in the direction of the victim», detailed Ms. Sorita-Minard who opened a judicial investigation against X for murder.
The young Afghan died of his injuries in hospital the following night. The autopsy confirmed that he had been hit by a single bullet.
As for the alleged shooter and his accomplice, who would have provided him with the weapon, they had fled.
«We thank the police and we now want justice», reacted Tuesday, after the first arrest, Sardarwali Tarakhil, friend of the victim, while wondering how the shooter «could arrive in Sarcelles» without being worried during his escape. .
Emotion remains strong in the Afghan community. «I don’t want to live here anymore, I don’t like this place anymore and I’m scared,» Ahmad, a 23-year-old Afghan who declined to specify his surname, told AFP. The victim, who came to visit him on the day of the tragedy, worked like him at the car manufacturer Stellantis in Mulhouse.