By LORI HINNANT
Nice citizens, holden a banner writing “No in jail, Yes to self defense”, take part in a rally supporting Stephan Turk, Monday, Sept.16, 2013, in Nice southeastern France. Stephan Turk, who shot a fleeing robber dead at his jewellery store on Wednesday, was indicted on Friday for murder and placed under house arrest. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
PARIS (AP) — Outrage is growing in France over the decision to bring manslaughter charges against a jeweler who shot and killed an escaping robber but the country’s top security official on Tuesday urged fearful storekeepers to let justice take its course.
The 67-year-old jeweler, Stephan Turk, was confined at home with an electronic bracelet after the shooting last week that left a teenage robber dead in the street outside Turk’s jewelry story in the French Riviera city of Nice. An accomplice escaped on a motorbike.
In a country where gun violence is rare but thefts are increasingly common, the shooting has placed the government in a difficult position.
“Even when faced with the unbearable, we have to let justice prevail,” Interior Minister Manuel Valls said Tuesday in Nice, where he was sent by the president a day after a protest by hundreds of Turk’s supporters.
Jewelers in southern France say they’re being targeted as never before and lack the resources to protect themselves.
“It was a difficult situation. I don’t know how I would have reacted myself. I don’t endorse what he did, but he had been beaten and threatened with death,” Yan Turk, the son of the jeweler, told the Nice Matin paper. “We’ve had it with being targeted by robbers.”
France has seen a spate of high-profile jewelry thefts lately.
A single gunman in the southern city of Cannes made off with a $136 million cache this summer. That was followed by another armed robbery days later in the same city. In Paris’ wealthy Place Vendome on Sept. 9, thieves drove a sport utility vehicle into a jewelry store, grabbed 2 million euros ($2.7 million) worth of loot, then set the vehicle on fire and escaped.
“The number of jewelry store robberies has been climbing for years. There’s one robbery a day in France,” Christine Boquet, president of the union of jewelers and watchmakers, told the Nice Matin. “This creates enormous stress for the merchants. They live with this fear and insecurity every day.”
Yet the sister of the 19-year-old who was killed says Turk shot him in the back and deserves prison.
“He shot a kid in the back. He’s a traitor, he’s a coward,” said Alexandra Asli, the sister of Anthony Asli.
Asli, who was shot dead in the street outside the jewelry store, had been convicted 14 times in juvenile court, according to Eric Bedos, the Nice prosecutor.
Bedos defended his decision to bring preliminary charges Friday against Turk, whose gun he said was not legal.
“After he was threatened, the jeweler grabbed his firearm, moved toward the metal shutters, crouched and fired three times. He said he fired twice to immobilize the scooter and a third time he fired because he said he felt threatened,” Bedos told the media.
“I’m convinced that he fired to kill his aggressor. When he fired, his life was no longer in danger,” the prosecutor said.
___
