This courageous family man in his fifties put up fierce resistance against two thugs who cut him off to get their hands on his smartphone and his money. Unfortunately, he lost his life.
These two young men appeared before the three magistrates of the criminal chamber of the Casablanca Court of Appeal. Their charges are heavy. They are charged with voluntary manslaughter. However, they maintain their innocence. They deny that they had any intention of killing the victim, a fifty-four-year-old father and employee. In fact, it seems that they are pleading for the court to reclassify their prosecution from voluntary manslaughter to assault and battery resulting in death without the intention of giving it, because they are liable to a life sentence under the provisions of article 392 of the penal code, which stipulates: “Anyone who intentionally causes death to another person is guilty of murder and liable to life imprisonment.
However, murder is punishable by death: when it precedes, accompanies or follows another crime; when its purpose is either to prepare, facilitate or execute another crime or misdemeanour, or to facilitate the escape or ensure the impunity of others or accomplices in this crime or misdemeanour”. On the other hand, they can only be sentenced to a maximum of twenty years’ imprisonment if the court finds them guilty solely of assault and battery resulting in death without intent to kill, in accordance with the provisions of article 403 of the Criminal Code, which stipulates: “When wounds or blows or other violence or assaults, deliberately inflicted but without intent to kill, nevertheless cause death, the penalty is ten to twenty years’ imprisonment”.
However, the representative of the public prosecutor’s office confirmed in his closing remarks that the two defendants had intended to kill the victim, explaining that the two thugs were initially armed with knives, whereas the victim had no weapons except his hands, with which he tried to prevent them from stealing his smartphone and money. However, the defense lawyer countered that his two clients didn’t want to kill the victim, a colossus and a brawler.
One of them brandished a knife, threatening him to leave them alone. But he attacked them. That’s when one of the two suspects tried to injure him to save their skins. But fate had other plans,” concluded the lawyer in his closing speech, before asking that his clients be granted extenuating circumstances.
After deliberations, the court found the two thugs guilty and sentenced each of them to thirty years’ imprisonment.
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