17-year-old student implicated in Belfort: his lawyer denounces attempted murder by police officer
The lawyer of a 17-year-old teenager accused of assaulting a police officer in Belfort claims that the officer held his client's head underwater during his arrest. He announces a complaint for attempted murder.
Complaint for attempted murder following a tense arrest in Belfort
Arié Alimi, lawyer for the 17-year-old youth implicated in the Belfort incidents of 2 October, has announced he will file a complaint for attempted murder against the police officer who arrested him. According to rtl.fr, the teenager found himself with his head in the water during his arrest, an event he contests in his account.
The prosecutor of the Republic for Belfort indicated that the teenager had stated in police custody that he did not believe the officer was attempting to drown him, but that he "had this impression initially" because he was "surprised". The lawyer refutes this version. He asserts that the police officer himself admitted to having "pinned down the head" of his client underwater, according to rtl.fr.
Conflicting accounts and claims of bias
The lawyer also denounces a lack of impartiality by prosecutor Paul-Édouard Lallois. He emphasises that the prosecutor is both supervisor of the police officer and director of the investigation, which according to him creates a conflict of interests. The magistrate allegedly selected "certain passages in a biased manner" from the young man's statements during a press conference on Sunday 4 October.
The prosecutor had argued that the depth of the water body was only 19 centimetres and that the police officer quickly removed the teenager from the water. The lawyer contests this claim, asserting that his client "had his head held underwater by the police officer for a certain period of time".
Broadening of accusations and request for relocation of proceedings
The complaint also targets Laurent Nuñez, Minister of the Interior. The lawyer accuses him of having given particular instructions to police officers in the context of secondary school student protests, creating according to him a context favourable to acts of "savagery". "We strongly believe that this type of act could not have occurred had there not been particular instructions given by the superior of this police officer," Alimi stated to rtl.fr.
The lawyer requests that proceedings be relocated in order to "calm the judicial situation" and contests the accusations levelled against his client. The public prosecutor's office requested that the teenager be placed in remand custody, having admitted in police custody to having struck the police officer violently during the disturbances that accompanied the secondary school student protests.
Disproportionality of prosecutions denounced
Alimi raises the absence of any prior criminal convictions for his client and his status as a minor. He describes the prosecutions as "manifestly disproportionate", arguing that the teenager "has never committed any offence in his life" before this incident. "It is absolutely disproportionate to demand his remand in custody," he concluded, reminding that according to him his client was first the victim of an attempted murder.
The lawyer also points to the language difficulties of the teenager, of Bulgarian origin, who "speaks French very poorly and understands it poorly". These communication obstacles may have, according to him, affected the quality of the statements that the prosecutor used to justify his position.
Source: Google News FR — Crime (fr)