Three young men, including a 16-year-old minor, were stabbed to death on the night of July 15 to 16 on the esplanade Cœur-de-Maine, in downtown Angers. The alleged perpetrator, a refugee 32-year-old Sudanese politician, was taken into custody.
>> Deadly brawl in Angers: two victims were from SCO Angers Rugby, “the emotion is very strong”, reacts the president of the club
A brawl in three stages
The thesis of a brawl having gone wrong is favored by the investigators. This took place in three stages. First at one o’clock in the morning, the police intervene for the first time in the area “Heart de Maine”, an esplanade near the castle of Angers, following a call for young girls bothered by the suspect, indicates the prosecutor of the Republic, Eric Bouillard.
When the police arrive on the scene, the suspect is no longer there. A bit later, “he comes back again and he is pretty firmly dismissed by members of the group“, according to the magistrate. The suspect will finally return a third time to the group, this time armed with a knife. It is then almost three o’clock in the morning when the police are called again: they then discover the victims , but also an aggressive crowd. The police even suffered projectiles. Quickly, the emergency services took care of three young people, aged 16, 18 and 20, each victim of a stab wound to the chest, all in cardio-respiratory arrest. They could not be revived and died quickly, according to the magistrate. Eric Brouillard specifies that he does not know if the three young people killed are those who had dismissed the man a little earlier in the night.
The Aggressor”got into a fight with a girl“and has”started touching sexually“, testified Sunday, July 17 to Outre-mer 1ère two cousins of the two victims aged 18 and 20, from Wallis-and-Futuna. Still in shock, Toanisa Vakalepu, nephew of Atama, one of the victims, tells his version of the evening for “put an end to the rumors“.
“The information circulating that the person was bothered by the music, that’s not it“According to this witness, the attacker”didn’t come for the music. He wanted to confuse another person and then went after a young girl“. Toanisa and his friends then gave him “asked to leave nicely“. At this moment, the man “shifted a little bit, and he saw a girl next door, he got into a fight with her, and that’s when he started touching her sexually“.
The girl then “started screaming“. Atama and Manuolito intervened to protect her. “OWe are united and we don’t want to see this kind of act“, says Toanisa. “The little cousins were advancing. The guy had time to pull out the knife and take action”, he says.
Regarding the place where the facts occurred, the esplanade “Heart of Maine”, it is a vast recreational green space, located on the banks of the Maine River, very busy in these days of high heat. The city announced on Saturday July 16 the “closure of the esplanade for the time of the investigation and the necessary meditation“.
Closure of the esplanade Cœur de Maine for the time of the investigation and the necessary meditation. #Angers https://t.co/ypBxdMVaMa
— City of Angers (@Angers) July 16, 2022
Who are the three victims?
The three victims, all men, were aged 16, 18 and 20 and were respectively named Ishmael, Manuolito and Atama. The last two, aged 18 and 20, are brothers and were players of the local rugby club, SCO Rugby d’Angers in Federal 3. They were from Wallis-et-Futuna, a French overseas community located in the South Pacific.
“They did rugby school from 2012, when they were 9-10 until they were 18“, explains the president of the club Jean-Benoit Porter, moved to franceinfo. Atama and Manuolito didn’t have “resumed their license“since the health crisis but were still”regularly at the club” and “came to see the matchess”, according to the president of SCO Rugby, who specifies that “The emotion is very strong.“
The Angers club sent its condolences to the family of the victims on Twitter and “to the whole Wallis community“. The president of the club called for respect for the family and “the Wallisian community which is very strong, very established and is part of the club’s DNA“.
The whole SCO Rugby Angers family joins in the pain of the parents of Atama and Manolito who died last night in Angers. Atama and Manolito were club kids.
We extend our sincere condolences to their family and to the entire Wallis community. pic.twitter.com/i1VrwxTYmR— SCO Rugby Angers (@scorugbyoff) July 16, 2022
Patrick Larget, vice-president of the New Caledonian rugby club Union Rugby Club de Dumbéa expressed his emotion to New Caledonia.Caledonia First. “I exchanged with the SCO club quickly. They were all devastated by the news and we are in the same state given the circumstances. We don’t understand what could have happened. We do indeed have a special link with SCO Angers Rugby because we have just signed a pairing with them and we have players who have left this year to join them.“, he indicated.
In addition, they were the cousins of the pillar of the XV of France and the Rugby Club Toulonnais, Emerick Setiano, trained at SCO d’Angers. “Horrible. Peace to your souls my little cousins“, he wrote in an Instagram story.
The suspect is a legal political refugee, already known to the police
Apprehended by witnesses to the tragedy before the arrival of the police, the 32-year-old suspect was beaten and injured before the police intervened. “The person designated as the author of the stab wounds “was first arrested” by those present“on the spot, undergoing”then violence before being taken care of by the municipal police then the emergency services“, according to the statement of the prosecution.
Hospitalized, he was placed in police custody on Saturday July 16, 2022. The public prosecutor of Angers clarified on Saturday evening that the suspect “was not seriously injured“, without being able to specify if he could have been heard during the day. According to information from franceinfo, the man is of Sudanese nationality: he is in a regular situation on the territory and currently holds a 10-year resident card as a political refugee.
He is unfavorably known to the police: if justice has never condemned him, affirms the prosecutor of Angers, the man is registered in the criminal history file, for three types of facts, driving while intoxicated , violence and degradation. At the time of his arrest, the man first gave a false identity, before the departmental security put a name on him. But it is still not possible to know if the man had psychiatric problems before the tragedy or if he was being followed.