Both women remained impassive as the verdict was announced and a third woman, tried for failing to prevent the crime, was acquitted.
Céline Vasselin, 35-year-old beautician, and Jessica Adam, 39, a client who became a «girlfriend», had been on trial since Monday for having, on the night of November 3 to 4, 2018 in the suburbs of Rouen, drugged, killed by weapon white and dismembered Sliman Amara with whom Céline Vasselin had had a son three years earlier.
After the announcement of the verdict, Céline Vasselin’s lawyer, Me Sandra Gosselin, said she was «satisfied that an assize court considered that psychological violence can be taken into account in the quantum of a sentence» .
Me Gosselin has «the feeling that the doors of the house of Sliman and Céline have finally opened», she who had repeated several times during the trial that the intra-family violence that her client said she suffered during her relationship with Mr. Amara , were always carried out «closed door».
Jessica Adam’s lawyer, Me Vincent Beux Prére spoke to him about a «just, adapted, lenient sentence».
«This clemency, which she really deserved, has two reasons: the psychological reason and the personality of Jessica Adam», said the lawyer, recalling the violence and rape suffered by her from her stepfather when she was a child, of the facts for which he was convicted.
Counsel for the victim’s sister, Me Frank Berton, for his part, said he was «very surprised by the amount of convictions and the leniency of the Rouen Assize Court».
Advocate General Olga Martin-Belliard had requested Friday thirty years of imprisonment against Céline Vasselin and 25 years against Jessica Adam who both incurred life imprisonment.
«I do not deny the difficulties of Ms. Vasselin in her life as a couple with Sliman Amara, but these keys to understanding will never justify an assassination,» said Ms. Martin-Belliard during her indictment.
As for Ms. Adam, «I think she was the armed arm that Ms. Vasselin was looking for, a conscious, voluntary armed arm», according to the magistrate.
The case began on November 4, 2018, with the discovery by the river brigade of a dismembered body rolled up in a tarpaulin, in the Seine, a little upstream from Rouen, as well as a hand and a human calf in d other municipalities the following days. The body will be identified by DNA as that of Sliman Amara.
Arrested a few days later, his partner and his friend had quickly confessed to the machination: toasts with anxiolytics for dinner on November 3, stabbings and then dismemberment using equipment purchased the previous weeks and scattering at different points the next day.
Friday, the two thirty-somethings had each tried to minimize their influence in this macabre project. Jessica Adam felt that she had been «much fooled» by her friend who, for her part, recalled Ms. Adam’s active role in the crime, the latter having struck the blow with a butcher’s sheet and the stab wound that she says didn’t see it coming.
Before the court retired to deliberate, Céline Vasselin said she felt «a lot of pain, for all the harm» she had «done to everyone». «I must be punished for what I did,» she said.
Jessica Adam apologized for her actions, saying to herself «sincerely from the bottom of my heart, sorry for Sliman, for his first wife, for his family, for his children».