Devil’s Advocates – How Fofana Exhausted His Defense

PDoes anyone know how to give their exact number: 38, 39? About forty, let’s say. There are the lawyers who, for a few weeks or a few months, defended Youssouf Fofana. Those whom the self-proclaimed “brain” of the “barbarian gang”, executioner in 2006 of the young Ilan Halimi, designated from his cell to challenge them immediately – even before having met them, sometimes. Those who were appointed but quickly withdrew. Those he named but who refused to defend him. To which one could add those who offered their services on their own and were scorned.

Youssouf Fofana, 42 today, is perhaps the indefensible client par excellence, the indefensible squared. Because there is the atrocity of the facts: the unspeakable ordeal of Ilan Halimi, kidnapped…