Since September, 150 people have been arrested for looting. Some were tried immediately, others appeared in court yesterday.
Three months after the looting that followed the passage of Hurricane Irma over Saint Martin, the criminal response was organized. Two days of hearings, the first of which takes place yesterday, are scheduled to deal with the files of 70 suspected looters being prosecuted. Some of them will notably be tried for "theft in commercial premises". They face up to five years in prison. The others have already been tried in immediate court or have received alternative sentences.
"The looting was hard hit by the population," recently said the public prosecutor of Basse-Terre, Samuel Finielz.
"Commodity" thieves
and "thieves by opportunity"
In early September, the first looting was organized the day after Irma. Many stores had been emptied of their contents by inhabitants in search of food, or perceiving in this drama the opportunity to enrich themselves. “The former are people who have found it easy to enter grocery stores or convenience stores and steal food and drink. The gendarmes, themselves faced with the lack of food and water, do not treat them in the same way as those who steal equipment, "said the spokeswoman.
Three prosecutors had been dispatched to the island and over the next month, investigators, who used all the information, videos and photos available to them, despite the special circumstances of the hurricane, made 150 arrests.
Seven immediate appearances
Like the gendarmes, the justice system also made a distinction between thefts said to be of necessity and those of opportunity. "The criminal responses were adjusted according to the purpose of the theft," confirmed Samuel Finielz. He then said that seven of the 11 people imprisoned following the looting had been tried in immediate appearance by the correctional court of Basse-Terre and sentenced to terms ranging from three months in prison suspended, to one year in prison. All were arrested "in possession of firearms" or "while committing thefts from commercial premises or in possession of stolen goods," added the magistrate. Four of those convicted were kept in detention.
The justice system has also implemented non-prison sentences. Forty-five defendants, mainly prosecuted for thefts with little damage, were the subject of "alternatives
prosecution, "said the prosecutor. These people, without a criminal record, will have to carry out "work to clean up the island".
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