For lack of agreement between the members of the jury, the trial of Paul Zaidan, accused of having kidnapped and kidnapped the CEO of the restaurants Chez Cora, aborted Friday morning, at the Laval courthouse.
Posted at 11:14 a.m.
Updated at 11:49 a.m.
For the second time in two days, the jury announced, around 10:30 a.m., that it could not reach a joint decision.
“We all agree that a unanimous verdict is impossible,” said a note given to Judge François Dadour by the members of the jury, at the Laval courthouse.
The judge therefore decided to abort the trial.
“When the judge is satisfied that the jury cannot agree on its verdict, and that it would be useless to detain it any longer, he may, at his discretion, dissolve it and order the constitution of a new jury”, explained Judge Dadour, citing an article of the Criminal Code.
Addressing the jurors, the judge pointed out that the decision they had to make was difficult. “Judging the fate of another person is a very big responsibility,” he said. Of course, society wants a jury to reach a unanimous verdict. But sometimes, in a case like this, a jury cannot come to a common conclusion. You were entitled to disagree, and I’m sure you worked very hard. »
Paul Zaidan, a former Chez Cora franchisee, was accused of kidnapping Nicholas Tsouflidis, president of the restaurant chain, and demanding an $11 million ransom from his mother Cora Tsouflidou, the company’s founder .
His trial lasted two months. Jury members had been deliberating since last Saturday to try to determine whether he was guilty or not.
The Crown argued that significant circumstantial evidence linked Paul Zaidan to the events of March 8, 2017.
Nicholas Tsouflidis said during the trial that three men allegedly abducted him from his home in Mirabel and transported him in the trunk of a car to the basement of a house, where he remained chained for a few hours, before being released on a Laval road.
During the sequestration, the kidnappers reportedly contacted Cora Tsouflidou to pay them 11 million, following the instructions in a letter left in her son’s house.
The prosecution presented 40 witnesses at trial, and voluminous technical evidence, while the defense presented no witnesses. Paul Zaidan himself did not testify in his defense.
The defense thesis was rather that Nicholas Tsouflidis would have himself organized his own kidnapping, or would have simulated it, in order to accuse his brother, Théoharis Tsouflidis, with whom he was estranged.