Six senior police officers accused of racist insults and violence during the interpellation of an Egyptian in April 2020 were sentenced by justice.
Le Monde with AFP
The Bobigny court sentenced, Thursday, January 6, six policemen to sentences ranging from six to twelve months in prison, of which six months closes for some, for violence and racist insults during the interpellation of a Egyptian in April 2020.
A policeman, who had declared “he does not know how to swim, a bicot like that, it does not swim” at the arrested address, was sentenced to six months in prison. Four of his colleagues were sentenced to twelve months, of whom six months ago, and a prohibition to exercise for twelve months. Another police officer was sentenced to twelve months of suspended prison for “non-impediment of violence”.
The bobigny floor had not retained the violence in its requisitions, only insults, and requested lower sentences.
The Tribunal agreed to attach the case on the facts of “racist insults” to the direct citations of the civil party for the facts of “violence”.
“I am happy, the justice was done. I was injured, assaulted. I am happy with this decision,” said Samir E., the victim, at the end of the deliberation.
A case that had attracted indignation
On April 26, 2020 around 1:30 am, police officers had arrested at the Ile-Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) the Egyptian national of 29 years suspected of theft of material on a construction site and who had Attempted, according to police sources, to escape by throwing himself into the Seine. On flight facts, the case was classified without suite.
After getting out the river’s young man, one of the police said, “He does not know how to swim, a bicot like that, it does not swim”, according to a video captured by a riparian and broadcast on Twitter by Journalist Taha Bouhafs . “Oh, it flows, you should have hook a ball at the foot,” said a colleague.
The police officer who had used the term “bicot” had pleaded “the joke of bad taste” during his trial in November and the “need to decompress and marry the gallery”, also said the policeman, issued Night numbers of the Territorial Directorate of Public Security of the Hauts-de-Seine.
In this case that had sparked indignation, two police officers were sanctioned administratively in October by five days of firm exclusion. The Director General of the National Police, Frédéric Calaux, had gone beyond the recommendations of the Disciplinary Council of the Prefecture of Police, who had proposed three.