According to Jaudat, the deceased was on the sidewalk on the left side in relation to the direction of the defendant's travel, and from there he went down to the road in order to avoid hitting him. This version is corroborated by what the defendant said in his interrogation of 26 September 2023. Thus, at the beginning of the interrogation, the defendant was asked from which house the deceased had left and answered: "I don't know whose house it was, the house he left is at the exit of the neighborhood, the first house is on the right side of the entrance when I am driving in the car, it came out of my left side" (P/8(a) line 17). Later in the same interrogation, the defendant reiterated that "the deceased was holding a phone and I saw him coming from left to right. .. a quick walk" (ibid., s. 159).
Later in the interrogation, the defendant claimed that he had only deduced and did not see the direction of the deceased's crossing in view of the existence of a wall on the right side (i.e., the impossibility of crossing from the right) and due to a statement by his brother during the accident that he should be careful of the arrival of a pedestrian on the left. These explanations are subtle. The defendant, as quoted above, also gave the deceased's pace of walking, together with the direction of the deceased's crossing, including the fact that the deceased also held a telephone in his hand. This description cannot be the product of inference and can only be given by someone who saw it with his own eyes.
Apart from this, the defendant's explanation according to which he concluded that the deceased crossed from left to right due to the existence of a wall on the right side was far from convincing, both because of the existence of a sidewalk on the right side and because as soon as it is possible to cross from left to right, there is a possibility of crossing from right to left.
In a later interrogation on 16 October 2023, the defendant was confronted with the fact that in a previous interrogation he claimed that he had noticed the deceased only when he was in the middle of the road, in contrast to his statement in the interrogation of 26 September 2023 (in which, as stated, he claimed that he had noticed a crossing from left to right with the deceased holding the phone). In response, he explained that the interpreter had not translated his words correctly, but that he had directed the translation error only with regard to the cell phone, without retracting his statement regarding the direction of crossing (see P/27A, line 164).