The letter of Marseille barrister arrived with the morning mail, that on December 9, 2014. At the time, François Mazon has not really paid attention to this assignment asking him to attend a Patrick Salameh. A case like any other, he thinks. At the time, this former senior corporate executive has just started his new career as a lawyer. “I had no clue who was Patrick Salameh”, says he. This is a cabinet colleague who will situate her character. Man has nothing lambda client.
François Mazon, the CAC 40 in visiting rooms Baumettes
In April 2014, this former robber was sentenced by the Court of Assize Aix-en-Provence to life imprisonment, together with a minimum term of 22 years, the heaviest sentence of the French justice for the abduction and murder of three foreign prostitutes working on Marseille boulevards, as well as the kidnapping and rape of a fourth woman to whom he let live. The bodies of the three victims have never been found.
The facts, which took place between October and November 2008, earned him the nickname “Blue Beard of the Marseilles sidewalk.” In his closing arguments, Advocate General affirms:
Six months after his conviction, the Marseille serial killer decides to assign the state for malfunctioning of justice services. Proclaiming his innocence, he believes that the police investigation was botched. It seeks a lawyer to defend him. Before François Mazon, several of his colleagues were contacted but declined the offer, knowing the time-record, low paying and not necessarily more promising in terms of image.
François Mazon experienced similar hesitation before accepting the defense Salameh. At the time, it is only a blue courtrooms. A young lawyer of 55 years with a lean year bar on the clock, even if he has already pleaded in two profile cases, the trial of PIP breast implants and that of Christophe Morat, an HIV-positive bus driver who asked unprotected sex . its partners
the case of a life
at first glance, it does not profile for the job: former leader of large computer engineering companies, it is intended rather to criminal cases. François Mazon smiled:
“At first, I even wondered if this assignment was not a sort of hazing.”
During the discussion on the law Macron , taken from his iconoclastic positions had indeed caused some gnashing of teeth in the Marseilles Bar, offended by the impertinence of the newcomer who was in favor of reform.
But the surprise passed, Mazon sees this assignment as a happy accident. After all, lawyers expect a lifetime a case like this one! A phone call to a friend, Eric Dezeuze, a renowned lawyer of the Paris Bar, finally convinced him: “Go on, again!” Mazon goes there, then. Without worrying too much about the potential impact on the rest of its customers:
“I have reached an age where it is no longer calculated.”
It is he who will lead the Salameh defense team alongside Bass Christophe and Jean-Philippe Roman at the trial of the Marseilles killer, to be held before the court of appeal of Draguignan from 18 April to 20 May. At his partners and associates at the firm, François Mazon said he had yet to attend Salameh alone assignment. A dubious pout had welcomed his remarks. The partners were not mistaken.
When, in December 2015, Salameh seeks counsel in anticipation of future appeal, Mazon accepts without hesitation this time. With beginner’s fervor, he said:
“This type of defense is to me the essence of this profession because it reveals the necessity of the role of counsel, this last bulwark that protects a man that a company accuses “
from Defense to prison Luynes
He knows it. the task ahead is daunting. In October 2015, Patrick Salameh was again condemned by the Assize Court of the Bouches-du-Rhône to life imprisonment, this time in connection with the kidnapping and death of Fatima, a baby -sitter disappeared in May 2008. both records will be also attached to the appeal court.
“Patrick Salameh against him, recognizes Mazon. Five victims including four women who disappeared and who described him as a torturer and rapist monster; a maddening and litigious attitude that has exhausted the nerves of all magistrates who dealt with him a multitude of letters both to the Minister of Justice at the Defender of rights through the witnesses who have experienced them as unacceptable pressure, and a scientific police using this case to use all its tools (DNA, phone, bank card, transportation card …) and demonstrate the infallibility of his approach. ” And the lawyer added:
“I feel like a small artisan, alone with a Himalayan difficulties, piece by piece, trying to deconstruct this beautiful building built by the accusation, which, word after word, trying to return to the human community that that public opinion has ruled. “
Mazon-Salameh. The team of the former head of the CAC 40 and the killer robber is surprising. There are not so long, the first was still number 2 of Cap Gemini, one of the world leaders in consulting and technology services. Office perched on the 35th floor of a tower defense with panoramic views of Paris. Salary several zeros. Two secretaries and a driver available. Ten thousand employees under him.
In 2008, he decided to chuck everything to don the black robe. An old dream of teen with which it decided to renew the edge of his 50 years. After five years of studies on the benches of the university, he was sworn in January 2014. Change of scenery radical. He who frequented the popular quiet lounges captains of industry now roams the low pit bottoms and poorly lit courtroom. “I discovered that all the people I defend like me,” he says. He who made his living comfortably is now often paid through legal aid.
“I have never known such freedom, I saw my fees, I have accounts to anyone . “
once or twice a week, François Mazon broke through the twelve gates of the Luynes prison inmates to join the district in solitary confinement. This is where Salameh has been imprisoned since 2008. To prepare for the trial, the two men met about thirty times in a narrow cell acting parlor. Strange place for a funny game. On one side of the table, a former Central to the unwavering course: family of engineers, run by great schools, positions of responsibility at IBM, Cap Gemini or Steria … On the other, the offspring of a family of nine children of Syrian-Lebanese origin [one of her brothers was the consul of Syria in Marseille, another notorious pimp, Ed] in the chaotic route.
Heist and saucissonnages
Born in 1957 in Frejus, father of two boys, training chef, Patrick Salameh held a moment a blind restaurant in the Opera district of Marseille. In the late 1980s, to bail out of his establishment, he rises Turning with regulars at the counter. First banks and individuals to saucissonnages. The victims are targeted because they are on a list of clients of a company safes that criminals have purchased. One of them would even family Zampa, the famous Marseilles sponsor.
During these “home jackings” Salameh is distinguished by its violence. He plants a knife in the foot of a victim who refused to open his safe. It kills the dog from another. He sexually assaults a young woman kidnapped. In 1993 he gets a twenty-year sentence of imprisonment for these facts. He was finally released on parole in 2005.
“It’s an improbable and endearing personality that makes you want to fight for him,” says François Mazon. “Intelligent” and “stubborn”, say the experts. In his cell, Salameh has no TV but France Culture listening all day, reads the Chinese writer and poet François Cheng, and studying psychoanalysis books to bring contradiction to psychiatric experts who have examined his case. During his first detention at the Poissy plant, he began to paint. He will testify later:
“The first time I had a relationship with art is robbing a castle to a fence antique dealer.”
He even exposed to Auvers-sur-Oise to his release from prison, gave some interviews and sold some paintings: “250 to 600 euros,” he writes in one of his many letters. For man is also a licensed graphomane. According to several media, he would have written during his first stay in prison, “Decadence at full speed. How our radio hosts make monsters every day.” An author account to published work which he denies being behind.
During the search of the investigation into the murders of prostitutes, policemen fall on another manuscript in preparation. A biography of Salameh in which he spits his hatred of prison guards and explains his fascination with a child killer.
From his cell, Salameh quenches the world of letters. Thousands of leaflets he gathered in several self-published and sold books, no one knows how, on the internet. He also corresponded with Alfredo Stranieri, nicknamed “the killer ads,” he met in prison in Poissy.
“If you do not do the nasty,
you fear nothing”
As distinct as they are, and the trajectories of Mazon Salameh rocked a few hours apart. Autumn 2008, three prostitutes Marseille disappear in a few weeks: Irina, a Ukrainian, 42, Christina, a Romanian of 23 years, and Zineb, an Algerian of 28 years. A psychosis of climate earns Marseille. The investigation stalled. The police, however, have a track. They discovered that Irina phone chip was activated twice since the disappearance of prostitute. And this from two different laptops.
On November 18, the owners of the two phones are summoned to the police. They deliver the same version to police, a man approached them on the street. In exchange for 10 euros, he asked them to be able to slide the chip in their mobile to make a call. They know nothing of the individual
Incredible coincidence. Coming out of the police station at around 18:45, one of the two witnesses came face-to-face with the man in question. He calls out, catches, taps him on the shoulder. It flees. A chase begins. With the help of two municipal police officers came to the rescue, the witness finally managed to stop the man with the chip, instead of the Danaides, close to the Canebière. This is Patrick Salameh.
During its hearings, the latter became foreman since his release, denies the facts. But during a search in an apartment owned, located at a dead end, the police find the DNA of Irina and Christina, and jewelry belonging to Zineb. They also find condoms, ropes and serflex … When asked as part of the investigation, neighbors say they heard “crying” for women and the “fall on deaf sounds.” Another witness will be capital.
In mid-November, a young Moroccan prostitute the name Soumia visited the police station to report the assault and rape she suffered early October. A man offered her 900 euros to spend the night with him. He took her home before inflicting the worst abuse. At one point, her attacker would have opened the door to the bathroom to show him the body of a woman in a bathtub and told him: “If you stay with me, kind, do not scream, you do not do the wicked, you fear nothing. If you do the nasty, there are plenty of girls there. “
a few days after her testimony, she formally identify Patrick Salameh. It will recognize the flat bottom of the impasse as the one where she was kidnapped.
The enigma of the body
On 19 November 2008 in the early morning, a few hours after the arrest of Salameh, the existence of François Mazon as she took a decisive turn. Tired by the pressure of the corporate world, he signed in Paris its starting transaction Branch Steria. He then embarks on an unlikely adventure back to school to become a lawyer. At the time, he was far from imagining one day defend a serial killer.
Since February 2015, François Mazon immersed himself in the 30,000 pages of the dossier. He said, be pulled out with the conviction Salameh is innocent. “In the first instance in cases of murders of three prostitutes, there was no real debate,” believes François Mazon.
After two days of hearings, lawyers had Salameh challenged an associate judge then requested an adjournment of the trial. Refusal of then President. In protest, his lawyers were disqualified. The trial therefore continued without them. And without Salameh, who decided not to attend the hearings. François Mazon assures:
“. The appeal hearing will be the first real trial”
To defend his client, the lawyer has put involved the police investigation. According to him, several tracks have not been detailed. In particular, that of the turf war between prostitutes and their pimp Soumia have ogled the same piece of tarmac Irina and Christina. According to Salameh, it is this same Soumia would have given him the smart phone Irina. If the Marseillais acknowledges having had sex with the four victims, it ensures raccompagnées have on their work.
As for the jewelry belonging to Zineb and found home, he notes that they were not on the initial inventory. Remains the enigma of the bodies of three prostitutes and the babysitter. The land, apartments, Salameh family cellars were searched, as streams and tanks. In vain. Analyses of this incinerator in the garden of Salameh have given anything either. But the absence of body-it is no crime? At the first trial, magistrate noted that since the arrest of the Marseillais, no prostitute had been killed.
Vincent Monnier
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