Second brother of French anti-drugs campaigner shot dead in Marseille

The second brother of young French anti-drug activist Amine Kissasi has been shot dead in Marseille in a suspected crime ring killing.

An older brother was murdered in 2020. Ibrahim Kisasi was shot dead and his charred body was found in a burned-out car, a common method of mass murder known locally as “barbecue.”

Amin, who was a high school student at the time, founded an association called Conscience, which aimed to help young people in poor areas of Marseille escape the clutches of powerful drug gangs.

On Thursday, he learned that his second brother, 20-year-old Mahdi, was also killed in the city.

Mehdi was parking his car in central Marseille when a motorcycle stopped and the rear passenger opened fire with a 9 mm pistol.

While it was known that Amin’s murdered older brother, Ibrahim, was involved with drug gangs, investigators say that was not true of El Mahdi, who had ambitions to become a policeman.

They fear the killing is a warning to Amin.

“This hypothesis is not ruled out at all,” Marseille Public Prosecutor Nicolas Besson told French radio.

“And if that turns out to be the case, it means we have crossed another threshold. This takes us back to certain terrible periods in the history of our country, when you went out and killed people just because they were from a family you had problems with.”

Amine Kisasi, who ran unsuccessfully for the Green Party in last year’s European and legislative elections and recently wrote a book called Marseille Wipe Your Tears – Life and Death in the Land of Drugs, has recently received death threats and is living under police protection.

“It is very sad for my friend and for his mother,” said Christine Juste, a Marseille city councilor from the Green Party.

“No mother should have to go through this – losing two children. And I am very angry that in the second largest city in France, people can be killed so easily in broad daylight.”

Marseille is known for its escalating drug wars, with rival gangs from migrant-populated neighborhoods in the north of the city fighting for influence.

The vendettas result in a series of revenge murders, with the killers sometimes as young as 15 years old. So far, there have been 14 drug-related homicides this year.

Amin Kasasi’s association, “Al-Dameer”, has branches in several other towns and cities. Its main activities include providing assistance and counseling to families who have lost children to drug-related violence, and establishing links between former offenders and employers.

When he was 17, Amin was selected to meet Emmanuel Macron when the president came to Marseille in 2021 to discuss projects to improve life in the city.

One local newspaper described him in its headline: “The kid from the estates who has Macron’s ear.”

In explaining his decision to run for elections, the young activist wrote in his book: “Politics never extended its hand to me, so I decided to grab it by the throat. Oh Ibrahim, you were the one who brought me into politics the day I was burned in the car.”