Repatriated to France to serve a sentence pronounced in Turkey, Fabien Azoulay was released free from the prison of Health

Fabien Azoulay, a 43-year-old Franco-American, who was sentenced to prison in Turkey for importing narcotics, was released from the Health prison in Paris on Tuesday November 2, his lawyers told Franceinfo.

In 2017, he was sentenced to 16 years and 8 months in prison in Turkey, for importing narcotics. After four years in prison, he was repatriated on August 17 to France to serve the remainder of his sentence. This had been reduced to five years in prison by French justice, in accordance with French law.

“It is for Fabien the end of a long ordeal and for us a moving victory”, say his lawyers. “This outcome owes everything to the obstinacy of his support, to legal rigor and diplomacy. Convinced of his innocence, we have never given in to the temptation of discouragement. For Fabien, it’s a new beginning”, continue his lawyers in a press release. Masters Carole-Olivia Montenot and François Zimeray had seized the justice of a request for adaptation then a modification of sentence, which led to the release of Fabien Azoulay.

His lawyers had also denounced the conditions of imprisonment of their client, Jewish and homosexual, “victim of aggravated violence committed by a fellow prisoner” who had inflicted on him in 2018 “burns due to his homosexuality and belonging to the Jewish religion”. They denounced “an unjust and brutal detention which will mark him for life”.

During a short trip to Istanbul in 2017, Fabien Azoulay was arrested for having bought a vial of GBL on the internet, when the entrepreneur wanted to make hair implants. This chemical is used as a paint solvent and, when ingested, transforms in the body into GHB, a drug which is increasingly used recreationally. According to his lawyers, he “was unaware that this product had recently been banned in this country “ and had it delivered “in good faith”.

“The lesson is that you have to be very careful when traveling”, declared on franceinfo François Zimeray. “There are many French people who are in prison in the world and we do not know it enough. Many do not understand the risks to which they are exposed by leaving the national territory.”


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