The 48-year-old was convicted of three murders and one attempted murder during a murderous journey in January 2021.
Maximum penalty. Gabriel Fortin, the “HRD killer”, was sentenced on Wednesday June 28 by the Drôme Assize Court to life imprisonment, accompanied by a 22-year security sentence. After 12 days of trial, and just over three hours of deliberation, the jurors found the 48-year-old accused guilty of the murders of a Pôle emploi executive, two human resources managers and the assault armed with another HRD. This murderous journey shocked the country in January 2021. His sentence corresponds to the maximum provided for by law, required by the public prosecutor.
Before the jury retired to deliberate at the beginning of the afternoon, the requisitions and pleadings gave rise to a pass of arms around possible psychological problems of the accused after the experts had ruled out any alteration of discernment. . “He’s methodical, he’s organized, he’s adaptive, he’s not crazy”assured Advocate General Laurent de Caigny, requesting the maximum sentence for the unemployed engineer.
“Not in a paranoid delirium”
“Gabriel Fortin does not like to be wronged, he is stubborn, proud, but he is not in a paranoid delirium.” He did “the choice of assassination”assured the magistrate, castigating a “mediocre omnipotence” and the silence of the accused, a form of strategy of “retrenchment” according to him.
“If he is not capable of apologies, remorse, regrets, isn’t it because he has a psychiatric problem? But madness is scary, we don’t want to see it”, argued Gabriel Fortin’s lawyer, Romaric Chateau, trying to demonstrate the alteration of his client’s discernment. He denounced psychiatric expertise “truncated” by Gabriel Fortin’s silence and the doctors’ lack of information.
In a last speech on Wednesday, the accused – uncooperative since June 13 – repeated what he has been saying since the start of the trial, claiming to be a victim. “personal harm”, “spy” and an indictment. “Justice is solely responsible for my situation because it is failing”, he concluded. During the requisitions and pleadings, he remained leaning forward, taking notes head down.