19, Uber Eats, Champs-sur-Marne, May 2019
On 24 May 2019, having just finished a last delivery for Uber Eats in Champs-sur-Marne, east of Paris, and heading home to avenue du Gendarme Castermant in Chelles to break his Ramadan fast, Karim is violently struck by a car that has just run a red light at a junction near the Noisy-Champs RER station, on the Paris suburban rail network. The impact is terrible.
A woman passing by tells the police she saw the driver, a 25-year-old man living in Champs-sur-Marne, stop briefly after the collision. He reportedly even admitted running a red light and said he was afraid the victim was dead. Despite her urging him to stay, he eventually fled. “He moved forward a bit, then he ran off towards his car,” she says.
Karim is still conscious when the emergency services arrive. Taken to the Henri-Mondor hospital in Créteil, in the Val-de-Marne, he immediately undergoes surgery for multiple fractures. Doctors place him in an induced coma to spare him suffering. But his brain was badly damaged in the accident. On the Tuesday evening, doctors tell his family he is brain-dead. Five days after the accident, on Wednesday 29 May, Karim Horn dies when the machines keeping him alive are switched off.
Meanwhile, the police appeal for witnesses to find the hit-and-run driver. It is only after learning that Karim is brain-dead that the driver finally hands himself in at the police station in Noisiel on Thursday 30 May, almost a week after the accident. Formally charged with involuntary manslaughter aggravated by leaving the scene, he is remanded in custody by an investigating judge at the court in Meaux.
Registered as an auto-entrepreneur, France’s simplified self-employed status, since October 2017, Karim had taken up the work with determination. “He wasn’t lazy,” says a cousin. Behind the courier was a young man “with a big heart”, always ready to help his neighbours with odd jobs, “very resourceful” according to those close to him. With his best friend, he dreamed of opening a car repair garage.
“He loved his family very much,” she goes on. A large family: seven brothers and sisters who, with his parents, had to face this terrible ordeal. They drew the strength they needed from their faith. Karim was buried on Friday 31 May 2019 in the Muslim section of the new cemetery in Chelles, on the 27th day of Ramadan. “It’s the Night of Destiny, one of the most important at the end of the month of Ramadan. We all see it as a sign,” his cousin says gently.
“My cousin would have forgiven this driver, who will carry this weight all his life. It wasn’t an intentional killing. God forgives. Why shouldn’t men?”
In January 2022, the driver was sentenced to 3 years in prison, 2 years of it suspended with probation, and his licence was revoked.
Karim now rests in Chelles.