EUROPE IMAGES INTERNATIONAL - M5

Synopsis

On August 14 1998, Roger Beluscat, aged 76, entered the hair salon in the little town of Montrabé, near Toulouse, and opened fire with his hunting rifle. He killed the proprietor and a 17-year-old apprentice, Cendrine Stawoski. The culprit was deemed criminally irresponsible for his acts by the psychiatrists who examined him.
Near Belfort, dans le village de Lebetain, a 15-year-old teenager stabbed and killed his mother and father for no reason during the night of September 24 2000 in an incredible outburst of violence. This very rare incident of double parricide left the psychiatric expert witnesses divided. The young man was acquitted by Belfort Juvenile Court as well as on appeal at Besançon Juvenile Court of Assizes because they gave him the benefit of the doubt as to his mental state.
In February 2007, a 32-year-old man, Bouazza Benouahi, was acquitted on appeal by the Tarn Court of Assizes for being criminally irresponsible. Four years before, he had stabbed and slit the throat of a woman in a street in Gaillac. She was a perfect stranger. He said he wanted "to set the world free of the flames of hell".
Three different cases, three different tragic, barbaric crimes. But each time, the same questions. Where does crime stop and insanity start? How can you determine with scientific certainty these people's mental state? When in doubt, should legal action nevertheless take place? What happens to those who escape justice? Do hospitals have the material and human resources to take care of them? How do the victims react to these crimes which go unpunished?
This film takes a second look at these three cases in which the murderers were all deemed to be criminally irresponsible for their acts.

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