Lawyer describes suspect in nurse stabbing case as “sick” with heavy psychiatric history

The lawyer for the individual suspected of having stabbed a nurse at the Reims University Hospital to death on Monday, May 22, today described his client as “sick”.

A statement that refers to criminal irresponsibility. The council of Franck F., suspected of having fatally stabbed Carène Mezino, a nurse at the CHU de Reims (Marne), described this Friday, May 26, his client as “sick”, on the sidelines of a hearing for a knife attack on four people, in which he does not represent him.

Indeed, Me Olivier Chalot reacted to our colleagues from AFP on “the difficulty in having an interaction with his client”, and insisted on the heavy psychiatric history. “He’s sick, you mustn’t hide things from yourself,” said the lawyer.

“We have a psychiatric personality, which is recognized, which is established and which poses problems in terms of guilt and criminal sanctions,” he continued.

Tracked since 1985

Described as thin, balding and weak to the point of barely being able to stand up in the dock during the hearing, the defendant in the fatal attack on the nurse at the Reims University Hospital has been followed since 1985 for facts of “schizophrenia and paranoia”, according to the Reims prosecutor’s office.

He has also experienced various placements under “reinforced curatorship”, indicates Agence France-Presse, and currently remains subject to daily drug treatment, linked to the ailments from which he would suffer.

In addition, the hearing during which he was heard concerning the attack on four people in 2017, and devoted to the possible study of an alteration or abolition of discernment during these first facts, was finally postponed to September 8.

Towards criminal irresponsibility?

While he was indicted for “assassination” and “attempted assassination” following his fatal attack on Monday, Franck F. could, according to article 122-1 of the penal codenot to be criminally recognized as responsible.

“Is not criminally responsible the person who was suffering, at the time of the facts, from a psychic or neuropsychic disorder having abolished his discernment or the control of his actions”, can we read on the Légifrance site.

For his part, his lawyer Me Chalot confided to having been faced with a man “extinguished, and quite difficult to understand. Indulging in monologues”, during their interview.