Eighteen minors and young adults had filed a complaint in 2015 against eleven police officers from the 12th Parisian arrondissement. Four of them were sentenced on Monday to compensate some of the referred officials.
Le Monde with AFP
Seven years after having denounced police violence, four 24 -year -old men, who had filed a complaint at the end of 2015 against Parisian police officers, were found guilty of slanderous denunciation. They were sentenced, Monday, May 30, to compensate some of the referrals targeted.
The defendants have been inflicted on a penalty-repair sentence consisting in “compensating the damage caused within one year”. Otherwise, “the sentence incurred is three months’ imprisonment,” decided the Paris Criminal Court. They will have to pay between 3,000 and 9,000 euros in damages for moral damage to the police. These sentences are accompanied by a provisional execution: they will apply, even if the defendants appeal. The defendant’s lawyer, having not had access to the entire decision, did not wish to react immediately.
“I am very satisfied with this decision which finally establishes the truth in this case. The police that I represent did not commit any fault but were victims of this instrumentalization on the part of the complainants,” said their lawyer, m e jérôme Andrei.
On December 17, 2015, eighteen minors and young adults had filed a complaint against eleven police officers from the districts of the neighborhoods (BSQ) of the 12 district of the capital, denouncing violence, sexual assault or discrimination.
At the end of the investigation, most of the facts had been classified without follow -up, but four civil servants had been dismissed in court: on April 4, 2018, three of them had been sentenced to five months in prison suspended for violence. On appeal, however, they were released on October 23, 2020.
At the same time, seven police officers had initiated prosecution for slanderous denunciation against five complainants through direct quotes. Direct quotation allows a person to directly convene an alleged perpetrator in court, without a prior investigation being carried out. It is the person who quotes to collect evidence of guilt.
During the April 4 hearing, the court dismissed one of the quotes for a procedural issue. Denouncing an “absolutely frightening media coverage [at the end of 2015] before the complaint was filed”, M e Andrei had criticized in his argument an “inversion of roles”, speaking of “lies” and A complaint “climb from scratch”.
“conspiracy”, had castigated M e slim ben Achour, by denouncing a “bâillon procedure”. The lawyer recalled that, in this dossier at drawers, the State had been sentenced to civilian for “gross negligence”, in October 2020, to pay nearly 70,000 euros to eleven of the complainants for certain facts – police violence, unjustified identity checks and irregular arrests.