Five of the suspects arrested Monday as part of the investigation into the death of young Thomas, stabbed during a village festival in Drôme, were indicted between Thursday March 14 and Friday March 15. The latest indictment was followed by placement in pre-trial detention, the 20-year-old suspect’s lawyer announced to Agence France-Presse (AFP), without specifying the charges.
At this stage, the Valencia public prosecutor’s office has not yet communicated the results of the procedures initiated after the search launched Monday by the gendarmes, as part of the investigation into the death of this 16-year-old high school student who was fatally injured by a stabbing on the night of November 18 to 19 in Crépol.
Eleven people were arrested Monday morning by gendarmes, almost four months after the events. “In this investigation, the interest is to have everyone’s perspective (…) so that we can compare the words of each person and know what the real responsibilities are,” the head of the company said on Tuesday. national gendarmerie, Christian Rodriguez, on RTL. Five were brought before the investigating judges in Valencia on Thursday and Friday, according to information obtained by AFP on Friday from lawyers on site. Six others were released without prosecution, according to the Valencia prosecutor’s office.
Exact circumstances to be clarified
Taken to Valencia on Thursday morning, the first of the five detainees was indicted for “intentional homicide and attempted intentional homicide by an organized gang” according to his lawyer Me Guillaume Fort. This 19-year-old “fully admits to having participated in this evening” and “to having been close to the brawl” but “did not commit violence, even less violence with a weapon,” the lawyer told AFP . Prosecuted on the same charges as nine other suspects already indicted in November, this young person was placed under judicial supervision.
Two other suspects arrested at the same time as him during Monday’s raid were also presented to judges in the evening and then indicted, according to relatives met by AFP in court.
According to the Valencia public prosecutor’s office, the investigation has not yet made it possible to determine the exact circumstances of the tragedy which remain to be clarified, with none of those indicted admitting to having dealt the fatal blow to young Thomas.
Deadly brawl
This 16-year-old high school student was fatally injured on the night of November 18 to 19, 2023 by a stabbing at the end of a ball in this village in Drôme. The lethal stabbing had been carried out outside the Crépol village hall which hosted around four hundred people for the village’s “winter ball”.
The party had turned into a “brawl”, in the words of the Valence prosecutor, when young people from Romans-sur-Isère and who had not registered for the evening, some being judged “hostile” by witnesses, were involved in an altercation inside the room, before the clashes continued outside.
Called to the scene, firefighters treated seventeen people, eight injured, four of whom were in serious condition. Thomas, junior captain of the Romans-Péage rugby team, died on the way to the hospital.
The young people of Romans-sur-Isère inflicted blows, some stabbing, and nine of the 104 witnesses heard by the gendarmes reported hostile remarks “to white people”. Faced with the mobilization of the ultra-right, which at the time had increased its actions to denounce “anti-White racism”, the prosecution always refused to disclose the identity of those indicted.
