Ullens trial: prosecution advocate affirms premeditation is established
Prosecution advocate Laure Wynants requested a murder conviction against Nicolas Ullens, arguing that the nine minutes elapsed before the shooting exclude any spontaneous act.
Prosecution closing arguments in Ullens trial: "This is not how you try to wound someone, this is how you kill"
RTBF Info reports that prosecution advocate Laure Wynants delivered a concise and direct closing argument to the jury, centred exclusively on the facts. She explicitly asked the jurors to disregard any considerations related to inheritance or family tensions from their deliberations. "Behind the glitter and sparkle, what we are talking about is the violent death of a woman," she reminded them.
For Wynants, the constituent elements of murder are not open to contest. Nicolas Ullens fired six bullets at close range at his mother-in-law Myriam Lechien, three of which struck vital areas of her body. "This is not how you try to wound someone, this is how you kill," she stated before the jury.
The central question of the trial concerns premeditation, which distinguishes murder from simple manslaughter. On this point too, the prosecution advocate was categorical. She highlighted "nine long minutes" separating the moment when Nicolas Ullens left his father's property from when the car driven by Myriam Lechien—with Guy Ullens on board—left it in turn. During these nine minutes, he could have desisted, according to Wynants, which makes any qualification of "spontaneous reaction" incompatible.
The precise sequence of events reinforces, in her view, this conclusion. On that day, Nicolas Ullens collided with the vehicle, walked around it, then "fired straight and true," taking care not to hit his father. This targeted behaviour demonstrates, for the prosecution advocate, total control of his actions, the opposite of the "dissociation" invoked by the defence.
Wynants also emphasised that psychiatric assessment found no mental illness in the accused. "Myriam Lechien did not die as a result of a moment of aberration, but because a man deliberately decided to kill her," she concluded before the jurors.
The trial continues with the closing argument from Nicolas Ullens's defence counsel. He appears as a free man.
Source: RTBF Info