Homophobic murder in Sorgues: psychiatric expert paints chilling portrait of defendants
On the second day of the trial in Avignon, a psychiatrist described two of the defendants as lacking a sense of guilt. The victim, Mickaël, 30, had been killed in March 2023.
Trial for homophobic murder in Sorgues: psychiatrist analyses profile of two main defendants
According to ici.fr, the second day of the trial taking place at the assize court of Vaucluse in Avignon was marked on Tuesday by the hearing of several experts. Laurent Layet, a psychiatry expert, was on the stand for nearly two hours to provide a detailed portrait of four of the six defendants standing trial in this case.
The group — ten people in total, four men and six women — is being tried for setting ambushes for homosexual men in Vaucluse in 2023. In March of that year, Mickaël, 30, was killed at his home in Sorgues after arranging a meeting via the Coco website.
Intissar and Aymène, only charged with murder
Laurent Layet devoted a substantial part of his analysis to the histories of Intissar and Aymène, aged 25 and 24, the two defendants solely charged with the murder itself. During his questioning by the expert, Intissar had revealed his motivations: "We used to pull scams, we would steal money from people by dangling drugs or sexual favours in front of them. Our prey were weak people, gays."
The psychiatric expert describes this young man as displaying "a low level of access to guilt and little critical reflection". He mentions an "anti-social" personality, marked by "contempt for norms and rules" as well as "character traits so pronounced that they do not allow adaptation in society". Layet concludes on this point: "If he transgressed, he did so knowingly, because he has no psychiatric illness." In the dock, Intissar followed these statements without showing the slightest sign of annoyance.
Aymène: late admissions and an absence of awareness
A similar detachment was observed in Aymène. On several occasions during the investigation, he had claimed that it was his friend Intissar who had suffocated the victim with a pillow, before finally admitting that he himself had committed the act. Layet sees in this mechanisms of trivialisation, even minimisation, and concludes: "It is as if he had not taken in that a person had died."
The expert also noted a complete absence of emotional reaction during the interviews: "When they described to me the facts they were accused of, there was no critical distance or particular emotional manifestation."
Associative mobilisation from the opening of the trial
On Monday, 1 June 2026, the first day of the hearing, around thirty people had gathered in front of the Avignon courthouse. Several LGBT associations present called for "Justice for Mickaël", chanting the name of the victim killed in Sorgues in March 2023. The trial continues all week before the assize court of Vaucluse.
Source: Google News FR — Crime (fr)