The 22-year-old man, who confessed during the trial to having killed the brigadier, asked for “forgiveness” this Friday from the family of the police officer killed in Avignon.
Tried for two weeks by the Vaucluse Assize Court, Ilias Akoudad was sentenced to thirty years in prison for the murder of police officer Eric Masson this Friday, March 1. A less severe sentence than that requested by the attorney general, who had requested life imprisonment. In May 2021, during a surveillance operation at a deal point in Avignon, the police officer was shot and fatally shot by two bullets.
The young man was convicted of “murder of a person holding public authority” and “attempted murder of a person holding public authority”. “It is a verdict which is not a verdict of elimination (…) The Assize Court considered (…) that obviously Mr. Akoudad should one day be able to regain his freedom. a courageous decision and also full of humanity”, greeted Me Frank Berton, the accused’s lawyer.
“The sanction takes into account both the seriousness of the facts, 30 years of criminal imprisonment, it is not nothing, it is one of the heaviest sentences”, indicated Me Philippe Expert, the lawyer of the close to Eric Masson. After the verdict, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin also reacted to “.
Ilias Akoudad ended up admitting to being responsible for the death of police officer Eric Masson, more than two years after the events. Throughout the investigation period and the first week of the trial, which began on February 19, he continued to deny being the author of the fatal shots and assured that he had taken the two police officers for drug dealers at the time of the events. . But he finally admitted to having shot Eric Masson during the hearing on Monday February 26. The accused maintained, however, that he was unaware of the police officer’s profession when he aimed his weapon at him.
Ilias Akoudad’s defense had not contacted the Avignon public prosecutor who had requested the maximum sentence during these requisitions this Thursday, February 29: life imprisonment accompanied by a security period of 22 years. “Éric Masson was executed without warning by an individual drunk with violence, proud of the gesture accomplished,” declared the magistrate during the hearing. According to Florence Galtier, “these confessions were perfectly orchestrated, perfectly publicized” with the aim of avoiding the 22-year security period, reports Le Parisien. “We did not need his statement. By the geolocation of his phone, we are absolutely sure and certain that he was there, that he had sold a dose shortly before. We are sure and certain that it is he who fired with the gunshot residue found on these clothes similar to the projectile fired”, added the representative of the prosecution to support her argument.
The prosecution had undermined the defense of Ilias Akoudad who had claimed to be unaware of Eric Masson’s profession and had justified the possession of a firearm by the fact of having suffered several shooting attempts in the past. When the accused explained, Wednesday February 28, that he had acted out of panic, the prosecutor disputed: “Everyone knows who is a dealer and who is a police officer. At no time can we confuse each other. In the neighborhood, everything everyone knows who is who.”
