A man suspected of having killed a Roma woman imprisoned for “racially motivated murder” in Haute-Savoie

The victim, a 40-year-old mother, seven months pregnant, was fatally injured on February 22, in Chênex, near the Swiss border.

Two men were indicted and imprisoned for “murder and attempted murder committed because of race, ethnicity, nation or religion”, after the death in February of a Roma mother, a announced the Annecy public prosecutor, Line Bonnet, Saturday June 8.

The victim, a 40-year-old woman who was seven months pregnant, was “hit by a projectile while she went out to see the damage” after her mobile home, where she was staying with her husband and two daughters 13 and 14 years oldhad been the target of “several gunshots”on February 22, in Chênex (Haute-Savoie), near the Swiss border.

The main suspect, aged 26, admitted to being the author of shootings targeting the family, “while denying having deliberately touched the victim”, fatally shot in the abdomen, the magistrate said in a press release. Another man, aged 30 and indicted for the same facts, admitted “having left the shooter with his rifle at the scene of the crime” and then recovered it.

The two accused also admitted to having fired shots two days earlier, on February 20, at several caravans in a Traveler reception area in Viry, a few kilometers away, where there were several families. Several caravans were hit but there were no injuries, according to the Annecy prosecutor’s office. Both were remanded in custody on Friday.

For years, strong tensions have opposed the local population and travelers in Haute-Savoie, particularly in the Genevois region, where the village of Chênex is located: at the heart of the debate, the lack of reception areas, denounced on the one hand, and illegal installations on illicit locations, on the other, as well as accusations of endangering public tranquility and security.