INFO FRANCE 3 NORMANDY. Following the acquittal of the former mayor of Canteleu (Seine-Maritime) Mélanie Boulanger in the trial of the vast drug trafficking, the prosecutor’s office of Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) announced this Monday, July 15, 2024 that it had appealed the judgment of the Criminal Court.
New twist in the trial of the vast drug trafficking in Canteleu, involving the former socialist mayor Mélanie Boulanger, her deputy for commerce Hasbi Colak and around fifteen other people.
While this long trial ended on Thursday, July 4, 2024 with the acquittal of the former mayor, the Bobigny prosecutor’s office announced to us this Monday, July 15, 2024 that it had “appeals the acquittal of Mélanie Boulanger”.
The two elected officials were suspected of being accomplices in drug trafficking, particularly in Canteleu. On July 4, 2024, Mélanie Boulanger, 47, was acquitted of the charges against her.
The court considered that she had provided several confidential pieces of information to her former assistant, but no act in this case had proven any complicity on the part of Mélanie Boulanger.
As she left court, she spoke publicly for the first time since October 2021.
I lost everything in this affair, I lost 33 months of my life, I lost my taste for devoting myself to public affairs through a mandate… But I regained my honor and justice was done. I am relieved as I speak to you.
Mélanie Boulanger, former mayor of Canteleu
The socialist elected official, who resigned in February from the mandate she had held since 2014, had announced that she was definitively quitting politics and confided that she had lived through hell for 33 months with the media and social networks. “I was followed by paparazzi”she assures.
The court, however, sentenced Hasbi Colak, the former deputy mayor of Canteleu, to 12 months in prison, suspended, and a five-year ineligibility period. Less than the 18 months in prison requested by the prosecution.
The Bobigny public prosecutor’s office has also decided to appeal the case. Abdarahime SAIDI “whose sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment, 2 of which were suspended with probation, the remainder of the firm sentence remaining to be served under the semi-liberty regime with provisional execution and no fine imposed, is much lower than the prosecution’s demands (7-year committal warrant and €200,000 fine).
It should also be noted that seven of the 18 defendants who appeared in court have also filed an appeal.