Police officer assaulted in Belfort: two secondary school pupils charged with aggravated violence
Two adolescents studying at Courbet secondary school in Belfort are being prosecuted for aggravated violence against a police officer. The investigation for attempted murder has been reclassified.
Two secondary school pupils before a judge following assault on a police officer in Belfort
The investigation initially opened for attempted murder has been reclassified as aggravated violence, due to a lack of "probative evidence" of intent to kill. According to nicematin.com, prosecutor Paul-Édouard Lallois announced on Sunday that the two adolescents in question are being questioned by an investigating judge as part of judicial proceedings opened for aggravated violence.
The two suspects are studying at Courbet secondary school in Belfort, near where the incident occurred on Friday morning. Approximately 200 young people were assembled for a secondary school mobilisation, of whom around fifty were engaged in violence, according to the prosecutor.
Profiles of the two in question
The first suspect, aged 15, is a first-year pupil. The second, of Bulgarian nationality, will turn 18 at the end of the month. Paul-Édouard Lallois clarified that neither of the two has a criminal record.
The assaulted police officer is head of departmental intelligence. He had attempted to arrest the older of the two, whom he had identified as one of the vandals participating in projectile-throwing and bin fires on the margins of the secondary school gathering. It was after this attempted arrest that he was struck to the ground.
Videos circulated on social media
Images of the assault quickly circulated online. They show the plainclothes police officer thrown to the ground by a person dressed in black, who inflicts several punches to his face. At least two other individuals kick him.
The 17-year-old suspect acknowledged delivering "two kicks to the head" and has "expressed significant regret", according to prosecutor Lallois.
Attempted murder complaint filed by one of the suspects
Parallel to the prosecution, the older of the two secondary school pupils filed a complaint for attempted murder against the police officer. His lawyer, Arié Alimi, accuses the officer of having attempted to drown the young man during the attempted arrest, which occurred near a stream.
Videos of this scene, taken from a distance and in which the protagonists are partially obscured by vegetation, fuelled accusations on social media. The images do not allow it to be established with certainty whether the young man's head was submerged or not.
The prosecutor categorically refuted this version on Sunday, emphasising that the stream reached a maximum depth of 19 centimetres. He also stated that the suspect, questioned in custody on this point, had himself answered in the negative when asked whether he believed the police officer had attempted to drown him.
Lallois had moreover explained that the police officer and the adolescent had "fallen into the stream", clarifying that this is the reason the images show "the commander on his knees in the water and the individual sprawled in the water".
Arié Alimi for his part accused the prosecutor of lying and denounced on BFMTV "procedural irregularities", calling for the investigation to be transferred to another jurisdiction. The young man, handcuffed on one wrist during his arrest, had escaped before being arrested again the same day.
Tense political context
The assault provoked a reaction from Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who denounced images that were "unbearable" and "of rare violence". It comes in a context of hardening of the secondary school blockade movement, seven months before the presidential election.
The government denounces "urban violence" attributed to La France insoumise, whilst the left and supporters of the movement criticise the severity of police repression. The attempted arrest of the secondary school pupil by the fifty-year-old police officer remains at the heart of a fierce controversy.
Source: Google News BE FR