“This verdict should serve as an example for any hateful person who tries to instill homophobia in our society. » Algerian LGBT activist, Zak Ostmane said to himself ” relieved “ by the conviction, Wednesday, May 18 by the Assize Court of Bouches-du-Rhône, of two former legionnaires who, in March 2017, had inflicted on him an ordeal and a rape in the room of a Marseille hotel. Kicks and punches punctuated by “Dirty fagot! » and of “It’s Arab!” », his tying to a chair with shreds of cloth, his confinement for thirty-six hours, the theft of his telephone, his bank card and a gold chain… All of this has been recognized, confessed. But not the rape of which Graham Shrubb, a 35-year-old Irishman, was the only accused.
This hothead that the Legion had just dismissed for frequent fights and heavy cocaine consumption was sentenced to eighteen years in prison. For the rape, as for the violence, the Assize Court retained the aggravating circumstance of homophobia – because of the sexual orientation of the victim -, as the lawyer for the association SOS Homophobia had invited. , who denounced a “rape of degradation”.
Two stories clash on the start of this violent camera at 3e floor of a hotel frequented by legionnaires on leave where Zak Ostmane, met in a bar in the Old Port, had followed the two ex-soldiers. Barely arrived, he has just swallowed a first sip of beer when Graham Shrubb knocks him out with a punch. When he wakes up, he is raping him. Often agitated in the inmate box, Graham Shrubb opposes another version.
The Irishman explains his explosion of violence by advances that Zak Ostmane would have made to him, a hand on the buttocks, an attempt to kiss him: “I don’t like being touched by men, I lost control and hit him. It’s because of what I went through as a child. » Between the ages of 7 and 13, the accused had been sexually abused by his boxing trainer. “But then why would he say he was raped?” », asks the president of the assize court, Véronique Imbert. “All this is a big publicity operation. He wrote a book and he was looking for publicity,” he retorts.
“I called him a fag but I’m not homophobic”
On the screens of the Assize Court are displayed photos of a red Calvin Klein boxer, the one Zak Ostmane wore when he was released after calling for help from a municipal police crew passing in the street. An expert has identified “sperm fractions” by Graham Shrubb on the back of the underwear. A golden proof for the Advocate General Christophe Raffin, who requested eighteen to twenty years of imprisonment against this accused, qualified as“driving element of the violence and perpetrator of the most serious acts”.
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