The scene was captured by city surveillance cameras. It was not yet 5 p.m. on February 2, 2017, when a BST patrol from Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis) decided to check several young people located near a police station. deal, in the Rose-des-Vents district. One of them, reluctant to allow himself to be searched by the officials, raises his voice. The intervention degenerates. The police want to arrest him, but a young man tries to intervene.
Théodore Luhaka, 22, punches a peace guard, Marc-Antoine Castelain, in the face. The colleagues of this agent try to control the young man, who resists them. The latter is beaten with a baton. Once handcuffed on the ground, a police officer slaps him, another punches him in the stomach, and the last one sprays him with tear gas. “Theo” is transported to the police station, where he becomes unwell.
Visit of the President of the Republic
The police noticed traces of blood on the buttocks of the young man, who was seriously injured by a blow from a telescopic baton carried by Marc-Antoine Castelain. He subsequently underwent several surgeries but remained disabled for life. Eight minutes of violence, seven years of waiting, and a highly anticipated trial.
Three police officers are therefore on trial starting this Tuesday before the Assize Court of Seine-Saint-Denis, in Bobigny, for “intentional violence” with several aggravating circumstances. The main accused, Marc-Antoine Castelain, 34, is appearing for “intentional violence resulting in mutilation or permanent disability in the victim”, which explains his presence before an assize court and not a criminal court. On the other hand, the prosecution for rape was dismissed by the investigating judge in charge of the investigations, due to lack of sufficient evidence.
The Théo affair, a symbol
The case sparked a wave of indignation at the time and became a symbol of police violence. Two others, just as high-profile, followed a few years later: first the death of Cédric Chouviat, a scooter delivery man pinned to the ground during a police check, victim of a heart attack, in January 2020. And the transition to tobacco of Michel Zecler in his music studio in Paris, in November 2020. Not to mention the numerous violence committed by the police on the sidelines of the “yellow vest” demonstrations, or more recently during the pension reform.
Five days after the events, Théodore received a visit to the hospital from the President of the Republic, François Hollande. A move that the police interpreted as an premature condemnation of their implicated colleagues. Especially since the latter, both before the investigators of the IGPN – the police of the police – and before the investigating judge, continued to affirm that they had not intended to injure him seriously.
Marc-Antoine Castelain clearly admits to having made a thrusting gesture, a technique taught in police academy with the aim of unbalancing and bringing to the ground a person who is resisting an arrest. But he denies having wanted to sodomize him. The experts contacted by the courts agree with this and believe that the accused did not have the possibility of precisely targeting the perianal region of Théo who was struggling.
Breaches
The three police officers involved all describe a difficult intervention and affirm that the use of force was proportionate to the situation. However, a few months after the events, an administrative investigation, entrusted to the delegation of the IGPN of Lyon, highlighted the existence of breaches committed by two of these officials and recommended a referral to the disciplinary council. The investigating judge, in her indictment order consulted by 20 minutes, also notes that the police beat the young man when he “stopped struggling”, “blocked against the wall”, or “when he was on the ground” and “handcuffed”. For these reasons, the magistrate requested their referral to the Assize Court. The main accused faces 10 years of imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 euros.
“My client is not guilty of the crime of which he is accused and we will plead for acquittal,” explains Me Louis Cailliez, Marc Antoine Castellain’s lawyer. “The injury caused is an absolutely unintentional dramatic accident, because my client had only one purpose in delivering this blow: to help his colleague who was trampled on the ground and to allow the handcuffing of [Théodore] Luhaka by making him lose his support by applying a pain point to his thigh,” he continues. His client “is resolute, combative and determined to re-establish the factual truth of this case and clear his honor in court after having been unjustly pilloried for years”.
Contacted, Théodore Luhaka’s lawyer, Me Antoine Vey, did not respond to requests from 20 minutes.