Whereas O.W.N, declares after the accused that
during the night of 21 to 22 September 2018, she went with
her twin sister and others to the bar named above to watch
an artistic performance; that at one point, the desire took
her to relieve herself; that to do so, she had asked her sister
to accompany her out of the bar so that she could relieve
herself; that this is how they went in front of the Head
Office of the Zood-nooma association of Kongoussi; that as
she was relieving herself, a group of three individuals
surrounded her; that one grabbed her arms from behind
while the other two in front of her started unbuttoning her
pants and felt her breasts; that in spite of her resistance,
they succeeded in knocking her down; that they were saved
by passers-by alerted by their cries; that she had, during the
events, lost the sum of CFAF 10,000 (ten thousand);
Whereas a cross-reading of the various statements
made before the court and other elements of the case file
indicate that O.W.N was indeed the victim of sexual
touching by the accused and his companions; that the
accused reiterated at the hearing that he had sexually
touched the victim against her will; that there is therefore
no doubt that the accused touched the victim in a violent
manner with a sexual connotation; that even if it has been
proved that, had it not been for the resistance of the victim
and the intervention of the above-mentioned witnesses, the
accused would not have desisted from his undertaking, the
investigation at the bar has not made it possible to establish
that his actions clearly tended to penetrate the victim
sexually, and that the hypothesis of attempted rape should
therefore be rejected;
Whereas, however, the same actions of the accused
may be classified in a different way, in this case as an
indecent assault; whereas, according to Article 533-2 of the
Penal Code, "Any act of a sexual nature contrary to
morality committed directly and intentionally on a minor or
with violence, coercion or surprise on an adult constitutes
an indecent assault;
Whereas the acts of groping the breasts of the
victim committed by the accused are of a sexual nature;
whereas these acts, which are contrary to the morality of
Burkinabè, in that they shock social morality, were
committed by means of coercion, as evidenced by the
circumstances of the acts described above;
That although the accused was a minor at the time
of the events, an analysis of the events suggests that he
nonetheless acted with discernment; that by screening the
victim and her sister and waiting for them to isolate
themselves before attacking them, he testified that he had
previously thought carefully about his act, from which he
acted with discernment; that it also appears from his
statements made at the bar that he acted deliberately and