“Police officers and citizens all equal before the courts”, “Numerous testimonies contradict the thesis of self-defense”, “Truth about the management of first aid” … Behind these banners, some 300 people marched Wednesday evening in Marseille in silence and recollection to ask for “the truth” about the death of Souheil, a young man killed by the shooting of a police officer during a control.
“The testimonies of residents and passers-by are very disturbing in more than one way and contradict the official version of the facts,” Issam El Khalfaoui, the young man’s father, told the microphone.
On August 4, 19-year-old Souheil El Khalfaoui was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic check he was trying to escape, in the district of Belle-de-Mai, had indicated the day after the events a police source.
Two judicial inquiries opened, the IGPN seized
According to the same source, the young driver was in his parked vehicle when the police approached to control him, but had reversed and struck a police officer. This check was carried out the day after a first check to which he refused to comply, according to the same source.
“According to the concurring statements of several eyewitnesses, Souheil and his friend (who was in the passenger seat, editor’s note) were not aggressive towards the police”, “according to the concurring statements of several eyewitnesses, confirmed by their video recordings, Souheil did not try to leave before the shooting, ”his father said at the microphone.
Two judicial inquiries were opened. The first, for “intentional homicide”, entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Police. It targets “the death of the young driver” and aims to “determine the conditions of the opening of fire by one of the police officers while one of his colleagues was struck by the vehicle and thrown to the ground”, had indicated to AFP Marseille prosecutor Dominique Laurens. The second, entrusted to the judicial police, relates “to the conditions in which the deceased young man” used his vehicle “against the police carrying out the control”.
“My son had already had to deal with the police and the justice system in his wanderings as a suffering teenager (…) but none of this diminishes the respect due to life”, underlined his father asking for “justice to carry out its work in all rigor and transparency ”.