Zecler trial: damning videos and poignant testimony against accused officers
Michel Zecler testified in court against the three officers accused of beating him in November 2020. Surveillance footage contradicted the police reports point by point.
Zecler trial: surveillance footage dismantles account given by accused officers
According to 20minutes.fr, the trial of the three officers accused of violently beating Michel Zecler in November 2020 reached a decisive turning point on Tuesday, with the broadcast of surveillance recordings and the testimony of the victim herself at the bar.
The first day of proceedings had been devoted to personality assessments of the accused. None of the three officers had been the subject of previous reports during the performance of their duties, and none presented a profile that might explain such an outburst of violence, according to the evidence presented to the court.
The IGPN: "It's a bit thin"
From the morning of the second day, the presiding judge and assessors sought to establish whether Michel Zecler could have, in any way, adopted behaviour that might justify an arrest whilst heading to his recording studio. The three officers had cited "the smell of cannabis" emanating from his bag as the reason for their intervention. The public prosecutor asked the question directly to the IGPN investigator in charge of the case: could this smell "constitute an act susceptible to being flagrant misconduct?". The investigator's response: "It's a bit thin."
Nothing therefore authorised the officers to enter the studio, which they claimed to have confused with the hallway of a building — themselves private premises under the law. The hypothesis that Michel Zecler had led them inside was rejected by the investigator. As for the notion of resistance invoked to justify the use of force, the public prosecutor recalled that it presupposes an active reaction, not mere passive resistance. "I have doubts as to whether Mr. Zecler led Aurélien L. into the entrance vestibule," the investigator stated. Of the roughly thirty blows — kicks, punches, baton strikes and even a headbutt — documented in the case file, the investigator was categorical: "Michel Zecler inflicted none of them," whilst the officers "inflicted many."
The videos contradict the police reports
The broadcast of surveillance footage, early in the afternoon, provoked visible emotion in the courtroom and in the adjoining press room. The images clearly show that Aurélien L., in plain clothes and without a visible police armband — contrary to what he had written in his police report — grabbed Michel Zecler in an attempt to extract him from his studio. It was not the victim who led the officers inside.
His colleague Philippe T. arrived shortly after, quickly followed by Pierre P. The blows followed in succession. Philippe T., described the day before by a colleague as "never aggressive, always restrained," inflicted violent punches to the face. Pierre P. delivered a headbutt and baton blows. Aurélien L. added two strikes with a telescopic baton to the victim's head. The former IGPN major in charge of analysing the videos concluded that "the only professional gestures" visible in the footage were "possibly the kicks at the beginning"; "everything else, these are not gestures one learns in the police."
The recordings also contradicted the claim that Michel Zecler had attempted to seize one of the officers' weapons. "At no point do we see Michel Zecler attempting to seize one of the officers' weapons," confirmed the IGPN investigator.
"The young people would have said 'We're going to kill you all'"
The officers had also maintained that young people present in the studio, in the basement, had made threats — "We're going to kill you all" — forcing them to intensify their blows out of panic. The investigator refuted this version: "Almost all the blows were struck before the young people arrived." The images also show that it was Michel Zecler himself who called these young people for help — he can be distinctly heard in the recording of Philippe T.'s communications shouting "Help, help! Ow!". The young people eventually opened the door which Philippe T. had been trying to keep closed, and pushed the attackers outside.
In five minutes, the lies contained in the police reports had collapsed of their own accord in the face of the footage. The three accused had clearly attempted to portray Michel Zecler as the aggressor.
"I thought I was going to die"
Around 16:30, Michel Zecler stepped up to the bar. Grey suit, build of a rugby player, assured voice. He stood less than two metres from the men seated on the defendants' bench. "It is not easy to see these videos again. Because I lived through what you [see]," he began, according to 20minutes.fr. Six years after the events, the victim stated that he had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
The trial, which concerns facts arising from a simple check for non-compliance with mask-wearing requirements during the Covid-19 health restrictions period, raises persistent questions about procedural delays — six years elapsed between the events and the opening of proceedings.
Source: Google News LU FR