“None of this was planned, it went completely wrong,” he said before the criminal court.
Now 27, Loïk Le Priol is on trial with four others for “aggravated violence” committed in a meeting, at gunpoint and with premeditation against Edouard K., who led the far-right group Gud between 2010 and 2012.
Hands clasped in front of him, head often lowered, he answered questions from the court in a calm voice.
Assuring “regret (r) everything that happened”, he delivered his account of the evening of October 8, 2015, questioning “a high blood alcohol level” and the “group effect” to explain the outburst of violence and humiliation which earned Edouard K. twelve days of total incapacity for work for his physical injuries and thirty days for the “psychological impact”.
According to the investigation, the young man “received many kicks and punches, was threatened with a knife, then was forced to undress completely” and dance, while Loïk Le Priol filmed the scene.
The ex-marine commando, repatriated from a mission in the special forces in July 2015 for post-traumatic stress, explained that he was on that day in October 2015 at a party at the home of Edouard K., ” a friend” who “was the leader of us all for a very long time”, and whom he had not seen for a long time.
– “The war continues inside” –
He admits having called his friends to join him, but assures that they only wanted to have an “explanation” with Edouard K, who would have made offhand remarks, justifying past violence against two ex-girlfriends, friends of Loïk Le Priol.
One of them, who came to testify at the bar, assures us that her “companion” at the time gave her “a very big slap” in July 2012.
Another defendant, Romain Bouvier, also indicted and imprisoned for the murder of former Argentinian rugby international Federico Martin Aramburu, added that Edouard K. would have been delighted with a serious road accident suffered a few weeks earlier by him, Loïk Le Priol and “a childhood friend”, then in a coma.
“I was terribly angry with him”, he admitted, adding that at the time, following the accident, he was consuming “alcohol more than reason” and was “in a deplorable psychological state “.
Loïk Le Priol, who was driving during the accident, will be given a one-year suspended prison sentence in January 2017 for “involuntary violence”.
“This whole period of return from mission is quite complicated for me,” recalled the former elite soldier. Once back in France, “this war continues. It continues inside you”, he explained. “That in no way excuses anything that may have been done to Mr. Klein, but I knew I was not myself.”
Referring to his acceptance of the pathology, after a period of “denial”, and his psychological follow-up, he claimed to have “had a huge evolution since” the facts.
An assertion that reacted in the courtroom, given the indictment of the young man on April 1 for “murder”, after the death of ex-rugby international Federico Martin Aramburu, following an altercation at Paris.
“You are presumed innocent and I will not ask any questions about it,” said Léon-Lef Forster, lawyer for Edouard K.
On the other hand, he rejected the picture drawn according to him by the defendants at the hearing: “The bad guy was him, and he would have suffered only what he would have deserved”.
He disputed the grounds for the abused girlfriend defense, adding that “even if it were true, it doesn’t justify a proper beating.” According to him, the reason for the attack would rather be the “narcissistic injury” of one of the defendants, Logan Djian, whom Edouard K. would have called a “balance” for having implicated him in another investigation.
