After giving his victim an “angel smile” in 2021, a former legionnaire was sentenced to eight months in prison on Thursday May 2. The accused is said to be traumatized by the external operations in which he participated when he was in the army.
The facts date back to November 2021. A former legionnaire allegedly gave an “angel smile” to a 39-year-old Pole whom he barely knows. The angel smile, or Glasgow smile, is a torture which consists of widening a person’s mouth by cutting with a knife the cheeks, from the lips to the ears. In this case, the knife used is a 23-centimeter double-edged blade. It comes from the Foreign Legion, according to the newspaper Sud Ouest.
An act which could have a link with the past of the accused, sentenced Thursday May 2 to eight years in prison for acts of torture and barbarity. “I can’t stand the screaming anymore, if the other doesn’t stop I get angry,” he said during his trial. “My head stings. I feel a lump swelling behind my skull. Then I get a rush of adrenaline and I explode,” he explains. The man is said to be traumatized by the external operations in which he participated as a legionnaire between 1997 and 2007. He also lost an ear during an explosion.
A psychological assessment was carried out. According to the psychologist, the man “could have found himself in the same psychological conditions as when he fought” for the Legion. Me Grégoire Barreau, lawyer for the accused, wants to reclassify the facts as aggravated violence. “For years, we trained him not to let anything show,” said the lawyer. “If he has forbidden himself from opening up, it is because he is afraid that you will see him as a monster. That is what he is about to collapse,” he continued.
On the evening of the incident, the two men met to give each other furniture. The former legionnaire then allegedly invited the victim to drink wine and beers. The police intervened two hours later. The Pole, found disfigured in a stairwell, assumes that someone “put something” in his “glass”. 2.5 grams of alcohol, cannabis and drugs were found in his blood. Five wounds were found on his body, three of which went from his lips to his ears. His teeth were showing. “I would have rather died than looked like that,” the victim told investigators.