Man ‘killed neighbour over dead goldfish’

A man is being held by the police over suspicions he might have killed a 55-year-old neighbour in a village near Le Mans over an incident involving dead goldfish.

Published: 10 May 2012 09:54 CEST

Mario P., as he is called according to the daily Le Parisien, was being held in custody in the village of Bessé-sur-Braye, 55 km from Le Mans on Wednesday.

Mario P. was taken in for questioning after the body of 55-year-old neighbour Philippe Emery was discovered on Tuesday upside-down in a bin full of water.

Emery’s head had been smashed and it is suspected he might have drowned.

Mario P. is suspected of killing the victim over an incident early February involving dead goldfish. Mario had lent the victim his goldfish while he was away. But the victim left Mario’s aquarium on his doorstep, where the fish died in the cold.

Since this incident, Mario P. and his neighbour had stopped speaking to one another. Mario P. was also seen washing his courtyard – which he shared with the victim – with bleach and plenty of water.

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Police intervened as dozens of students gathered on a central Paris campus of the prestigious Sciences Po university on Wednesday evening, management said.

“After discussions with management, most of them agreed to leave the premises,” university officials said in a statement to AFP, saying the protest was adding to “tensions” at the university.

But “a small group of students” refused to leave and “it was decided that the police would evacuate the site,” the statement added.

Sciences Po said it regretted that “numerous attempts” to have the students leave the premises peacefully had led nowhere.

According to the police préfecture, students had set up around 10 tents.

When members of law enforcement arrived, “50 students left on their own, 70 were evacuated calmly from 0.20am” and the police “left at 1.30am, with no incidents to report,” the police said.

The protesters demanded that Sciences Po “cut its ties with universities and companies that are complicit in the genocide in Gaza” and “end the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus,” according to witnesses.

The protest was organised by the Palestine Committee of Sciences Po.

In a statement on Thursday, the group said its activists had been “carried out of the school by more than fifty members of the security forces,” adding that “around a hundred” police officers were “also waiting for them outside”.

Sciences Po management “stubbornly refuses to engage in genuine dialogue,” the group said.

The organisers have called for “a clear condemnation of Israel’s actions by Sciences Po” and a commemorative event “in memory of the innocent people killed by Israel,” among other demands.

Separately, the Student Union of Sciences Po Paris said the decision by university officials to call in the police was “both shocking and deeply worrying” and reflected “an unprecedented authoritarian turn”.

Many top US universities have been rocked by protests in recent weeks, with some students furious over the Israel-Hamas war and ensuing humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza.

France is home to the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s biggest Muslim community.

The war in Gaza began with an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on October 7th that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

In retaliation, Israel launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,305 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.