If the first plea in defense of Mr. Laporte, heard yesterday in the wake of the indictment, taught us anything, it is that one of the two councils of the president of the FFR read L’Équipe, archived it and, quite expectantly, accused him of all evils before the court before waving him around in the courtroom like the shameful bulletin of the youngest child.
If we had sometimes felt the sensation, during the first seven days of the trial, of attending the trial of the National Rugby League, Me Versini this time designated another culprit in the person of Eric Russo, prosecutor of the PNF who investigated the case at its inception, before giving a new direction to his career: “Mr. Russo has been bought off. He sold out. He left for the American firm Quinn Emanuel, a global firm whose purpose is the protection of major international crime in tax, stock market and corruption matters. Mr. Russo is guilty of the offense of revolving door listed in our penal code, and illegal taking of interests. It is punishable by imprisonment. I tell you that because Mr. Russo left with the know-how and the address book of the PNF to the enemy. And he left the baby with Mr. Dulin. And Mr. Dulin has striven until today to put squares in circles. »
“Can you imagine what the sleep problem for men over 75 can be? How good the pillow has to be. »
Lawyer for Bernard Laporte, alluding to the president of the Appeal Commission.
There was also talk of media frenzy. On this aspect, Mr. Laporte’s lawyer evoked the cabal against the powerful: “Bernard Laporte was Mr. Sarkozy’s Secretary of State. This is unforgivable for part of the French press. So it’s suspicious. As for Mr. Altrad, he is suspect because he is a billionaire. It is the 30th fortune of France with pipes and bolts. Every billionaire is hated. And when there is a contract between the two, the culprits are there and a press campaign begins like, in my opinion, we have never seen. It’s worse than Mediapart with Cahuzac. » Fortunately “what is exaggerated is insignificant”he said about the sentences demanded by the public prosecutor.
The strategy then consisted in minimizing the object of the revelations and the phone call to the president of the Appeal Commission, Jean-Daniel Simonet, octogenarian mistreated in police custody, still according to Mr. Laporte’s lawyer. “ A 79-year-old lawyer has never slept in the mousetrap (while in custody) for a phone call of which he is not the author. However, the target cannot be an accomplice. We can hear him as a witness. And the next day, he is in such a state… Can you imagine what the problem of sleep for men over 75 can be? How good the pillow has to be. It is a torture suffered by M. Simonet, my colleague. This torture that Mr. Russo inflicts on him because it’s the last card. His file was shattered. Only Simonet remains because there was pressure. »
The absence of Simonet on the dock was also surprising. About him, magistrate Céline Guillet explained: “Knowledge of the contract is essential to impute the facts. It is believed that Mr. Simonet was unaware. What criminal offense could or should we have identified? » Defense pleadings will resume Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m.
.
