The daughter of one of the conveyors kidnapped and used as a hostage, 25 million francs stolen: the main accused of the robbery of an armored van in 2018 in Chavornay (VD) was sentenced to sixteen years in prison on Wednesday before the assize court of the Rhone.
Mehdi A., 40, was found guilty, in his absence, by the Rhône Assize Court, in Lyon, of armed robbery in an organized gang and kidnapping. First on the run, the man was imprisoned and sentenced in December 2022 in Tunisia, in a case of false documents, according to information received by the court on the day of the opening of the proceedings.
The Advocate General had requested 20 years in prison. The court upheld the warrant for his arrest.
The investigation established that at least six criminals had committed the robbery and the simultaneous kidnapping of the daughter of the driver of the van, to put pressure on the latter.
On a booty of 25 million Swiss francs, 2.5 million were found on anonymous denunciation, in a trunk buried in the garage of a house located in Ain.
Six years for the accomplice
Of the six men identified, in addition to Mehdi A., only one other man was to be tried for direct participation in the robbery of the van, perpetrated in Chavornay, in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. But, due to his hospitalization the day before the trial, his case was severed. He must be tried in the coming months.
On Wednesday, following six days of hearings, the court also sentenced Yusuf K., 32, to 6 years in prison for complicity. The jury considered that this former conveyor had provided decisive information to the team of criminals from Lyon, which he disputed.
The penalty is accompanied in particular by a permanent ban on exercising a profession in the transport of funds. Free at the hearing following three years of pre-trial detention, he was the subject of a warrant of committal.
Sentenced for concealment
A third man, Pascal G., 48, was sentenced for concealment of 2.5 million Swiss francs, to 4 years’ imprisonment, including 2 years suspended. The man who has already served a year in pre-trial detention, should benefit from a sentence adjustment. The jurors considered that the childhood friend of the one considered to be the leader of the gang had no knowledge of the exact origin of the loot hidden in his home.
In addition, a fourth man, initially prosecuted for criminal association, was acquitted. Indicted in another case of theft of precious metals with sequestration, Mehdi B., 30, remains in detention.
The sixth man identified and presumed to be involved died in a settling of scores.
Hostage
The trial was marked by the chilling testimony of Sarah B., 26, the van driver’s daughter, surprised at her home in Lyon by two fake plumbers on the evening of February 8, 2018.
“I was terrified. My survival instinct told me to do what they asked of me,” she said. Murder, rape, organ trafficking, she dreads many scenarios until her captors ask her to call her father, then driving his armored van. They use it as leverage, to force him to unlock the doors of the vehicle without alerting his company.
A few days following the robbery, while the investigations are in full swing, Sarah B. had been placed in police custody, the investigators having, at first, doubts regarding the role played by her father.
Previous convictions
Two Genevans involved in this case had previously been convicted by the Vaud justice system. The two thirty-somethings had not taken part in the assault itself, nor kidnapped the daughter of one of the conveyors.
But according to the judges, they had indeed played an indispensable and decisive role. They had been definitively sentenced by the Court of Appeal to eleven years in prison for one and five and a half years for the other.
For the record, the Chavornay robbery is part of a series of spectacular raids perpetrated on conveyors in Vaud land between 2017 and 2019, at Mont-sur-Lausanne, Daillens, La Sarraz and Nyon. Robberies which have ceased since the Vaud Council of State tightened the rules for the transport of funds.
This article has been published automatically. Sources: ats / afp
