He dreams of wearing the uniform to fight the violence that has befallen his family. Wednesday 13 November, Mehdi Kessaci, 20, was shot down by four bullets in the middle of the street in Marseille, near a concert hall in the 4th arrondissement. The killing resembled an execution and could have been a bloody message addressed to his brother Amine, an environmental activist committed to fighting drug trafficking.
At around 14.30, the young man had just parked when a commando on a motorbike targeted him and hit him in the chest. The two shooters, who were actively searching, fled. The Marseille prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into “murders committed by organized gangs and criminal associations with the aim of committing crimes”.
A young man “without history”
Unlike his half-brother Brahim, who was murdered in December 2020 in the resolution of a case related to drug trafficking, Mehdi had nothing to do with this world. “Until proven otherwise, he is in no way involved in drug trafficking,” Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said. The young man was “completely unknown to police and justice” and had a “clean criminal record”.
His ambition? Integrate law enforcement. After failing for the first time in the peacekeeping competition, “he is in the process of doing it again,” Marseille Mayor Benoît Payan said on BFMTV. “He really wanted to join the police. He had also experienced the murder of one of his brothers and he wanted, like Amine, to become a police officer, he rejected that,” he added, describing Mehdi as a “non-fussy” and “hardworking” young man.
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In Frais-Vallon, the Kessaci family’s native neighborhood in the northern district of Marseille, the sadness is deep. Residents recalled a “handsome, slim, smiling boy” who “always stayed out of trouble.” “He was a good boy, far from drug trafficking,” a former active member of the social center told local daily La Provence. The Kessaci family, neighbors stressed, “always rejected violence” and was “committed to the good of the neighborhood.”
The “murder as a warning” hypothesis
For investigators, the motive for the murder may lie with his brother Amine, 22, a Marseille figure in the fight against drug trafficking. After Brahim’s death, found burned in a car at the end of 2020, Amine founded the Hati Conscience association to provide legal and psychological support to families who were victims of human trafficking violence. He made himself known in September 2021 by calling on President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to Marseille, pleading for solutions to come from citizens and not from Paris.
EELV candidate for the 2024 legislative elections in the 3rd electoral district of Bouches-du-Rhône, Amine Kessaci had been under police protection for several weeks and had even been expelled from Marseille a month before the tragedy, after the release of his book “Marseille, wipe your tears: life and death in the land of drug trafficking”, last October.
“Under the most severe conditions, this young man could have been killed to indirectly contact his brother,” stressed prosecutor Nicolas Bessone. Authorities are currently evaluating the possibility of strengthening security around the Kessaci family. According to Benoît Payan, Amine is “devastated” and wants to “remain silent for now”.
