Flames in the dead of night. On December 29, 2020, shortly before 5 a.m., an Audi was found on fire in a tunnel on the A55 motorway, near Pennes-Mirabeau, north of Marseille. On board, two bodies: one in the trunk, the other on the passenger seat. They are charred, unrecognizable. A few days later, on January 6, 2021, a third dismembered body was discovered inside a burning Renault Clio in a dead end in the northern districts. The three victims will be identified after a few hours. They are Nassim Loubani, 24 years old, Réda Khaldi and Brahim Chabane, 22 years old. The latter is the big brother of Amine Kessaci (in reality his half-brother), civil party in the trial which is opening. For the elected environmentalist, this drama will be the starting point of his commitment against drug trafficking.
This Monday, therefore, five accused will be in the box of the Bouches-du-Rhône criminal court in Aix-en-Provence, tried for this triple assassination with a chilling modus operandi. Nadjim Ahamada Mbae, nicknamed “Rocky” or “Roucky”, Ahmed Zakaria Bensaci, known as “Zak”, Malik Kariba, alias “Bagdad” or even “The Butcher”, Amine Oualane, presented as an executive of the DZ Mafia, and finally Karim Harrat, known as “Le Rant”, heavyweight in Marseille traffic. All of them are unfavorably known to the police and justice services.
Under pressure and under surveillance
The victims were also swimming in troubled waters. Brahim Chabane, alias “Bleh”, and Réda Khaldi, known as “Le R”, were active in the drug trafficking sector. According to testimonies from those close to them, at the time they claimed the management of several Marseille networks with Nassim Loubani, also nicknamed “Malaga”. Paranoid, armed, the victims knew they were threatened. A few months before his death, Brahim Chabane had even escaped two murder attempts. One of them, in June, left Mohamed Abdel Noui, a Lyonnais who had come down to help him in his business, behind.
The police ended up looking into the activities of the three victims before their execution. The Audi, rented by Nassim Loubani and registered in Poland, was the subject of geolocation measurements making it possible to trace the last movements of the three men during the investigation. By cross-checking with video surveillance cameras, investigators noticed that the powerful sedan was traveling in convoy with a Mercedes during the evening. The two cars notably make a stop in the 9th arrondissement, in the apartment of a fifty-year-old who serves as a nanny and packaging room for the supposed trafficking of “Bleh”, “R” and “Malaga”. On site, weapons, drugs and accounting documents were found.
“The biggest butcher in existence”
Then the convoy stops in a street in Châteauneuf-les-Martigues, a town on the edge of the Etang de Berre, shortly before midnight. This is where the victims spend their last minutes. A neighbor hears loud voices and explosions. Blood, DNA and battered cases confirm the crime scene. Brahim Chabane and Réda Khaldi are executed then loaded into the Audi. According to investigations, Nassim Loubani was still alive when he was transported to a box, sublet in a residence in Marseille. His body will then be cut up “by an electric tool” before being set on fire.
In conversations captured by the sound system of his vehicle, Malik Kariba, from Marseillais born in 1995, boasts of having taken care of the “macabestre” “personally” and even jokes about the death of “the three burned bastards”. He claims to have killed “all of Marseille” and proclaims himself “the biggest butcher in existence”. Still according to his discussions, he would have been helped by his friend from the Air Bel city, David Guilbert, known as “Dav Dav”, killed in Marseille in October 2023, then the box would have been cleaned “by the little ones” from the neighborhood. Boasting, Kariba will evacuate during his hearings, before admitting to having cut the victim under the duress of hooded individuals.
DNA traces
For investigators, the macabre scenario is clear. Karim Harrat, exiled in Dubai, sponsored the elimination of Khaldi, Chabane and Loubani, whose ambitions disrupted the local balance. He would then have hired a team of killers led by Amine Oualane, on the run at the time of the events. To corroborate this version, the investigations are based on the Mercedes spotted on video surveillance cameras on the day of the assassinations, found abandoned the next day. On board, DNA and papillary traces of Amine Oualane, Ahmed Zakaria Bensaci and Nadjim Ahamada Mbae, but also of Brahim Chabane, Réda Khaldi and Nassim Loubani.
The exploitation of Sky ECC encrypted messaging, the study of telephony and the statements of certain companions of the suspects further add to the case. In January 2021, in his sound cell in Luynes prison, “Mamine” also evokes “the recently burned sons of whores”. “Amine Oualane is eager to explain himself and demonstrate his innocence in this matter,” defends his lawyer, Me Inès Medioune, who “does not consider anything other than acquittal.”
