It was perhaps one of the most anticipated court decisions in Marseille, after a summer punctuated by cascading investigations into police violence on the sidelines of the riots. This Friday, the police officer placed in pre-trial detention in the Hedi case obtained his release. 20 minutes takes stock of this new twist in a highly sensitive matter.
Who is this policeman?
Christophe, the police officer indicted in the Hedi case, works in the Marseille anti-crime brigade (Bac). He was mobilized with several of his colleagues on the night of July 1 to 2 when the second city of France was in the grip of major riots. During a hearing which examined his first request for release, on August 3, this official explained that he had just suffered an arrest, the victim a few days earlier of an injury during an intervention on a point of drug trafficking from a city in Marseille, which had earned him 4 days of ITT. “I did not want to continue my stop because the situation at that precise moment was necessary”, had indicated Christophe at the time.
After having initially denied having shot Hedi, this member of the Bac had admitted during the hearing of August 3 to having used his LBD. “I’m not crazy about the trigger, he had defended himself. I have fourteen years of public road and no facts, no condemnation. This police officer had concluded the hearing by considering “having done that [son] work “. In this case, four police officers were indicted for violence aggravated by three circumstances, the fact of having been committed in a meeting, with the use or threat of a weapon and by a person vested with public authority in the exercise of their functions. Only one, however, was remanded in custody. The 22-year-old victim had to have part of his skull amputated after being shot by an LBD.
Why was he released this time?
During his first request for release, the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal had rejected the police officer’s request for fear that he would consult with the three other colleagues under investigation before their first scheduled hearing. this Wednesday and this Thursday before the examining magistrate. This decision was motivated in particular by the fact that the police officer had changed his version during the investigation.
Before the judge, the police officer “explained the circumstances of this LBD shot, demonstrating that he had used it on the young Hedi, while the latter was in the process of launching a projectile likely to threaten the integrity of his colleagues, “said his lawyer Me Pierre Gassend to AFP, repeating the explanations given by his client before the investigating chamber of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal in early August. . “Christophe felt he had done his duty in the exercise of his functions, in a context of urban violence”, he continued.
“Personally, I expected this decision,” says Me Jacques-Antoine Preziosi, Hedi’s lawyer in this case. The court in its motivation explained that it had not released him to avoid any consultation before his hearing before the judge on August 30. Now that it’s done, they have released him”.
In a press release, the public prosecutor of Marseille Dominique Laurens specifies that this police officer is under judicial control, with a ban on exercising his profession as a police officer, on entering into contact with the victim, the co-perpetrators or even the members of the group intervening on the evening of the events.
What does Hedi think?
“I tried to prepare my client for this eventuality, but Hedi collapsed,” says Jacques-Antoine Preziosi. Knowing that policeman is free is something he can’t stand. He finds this unfair, because he believes that he was the subject of an assassination attempt. He had a very bad experience of this release. »
The lawyer for his part has another fear. “As the saying goes, he who lies once lies a thousand times. We learned that before being heard they made phone calls to each other. You will see that this procedure will be a flood of lies. He was released, all to continue lying. I am very sad for the police and the Republic, because there is a real risk of consultation. With telephony today, they can have one or more devices. These people have friends or wives who will lend them a phone to talk to each other. This is obviously what will happen. According to our information, Hedi will be heard for the first time by the investigating judge on September 6. His state of health so far did not allow him to be auditioned.
What do the police think?
Christophe’s placement in pre-trial detention had provoked a wave of indignation in the ranks of the police, who had multiplied sick leaves in protest and demanded his release. “We are very satisfied that the colleague is reunited with his family, rejoices Bruno Bartocetti, national secretary of the SGP Police-FO Unit in charge of the South zone. This demonstrates above all that he could have been released from his judicial control from the start. What additional guarantee is there today? What a difference ? »
However, “we are not going to open the bottle of champagne,” said the policeman. “We continue to protest against the pre-trial detention of a policeman and we remain very angry. We are staying the course so that parliamentarians in particular change the law, as long as a police officer is presumed innocent. As a reminder, another police officer is currently in pre-trial detention as part of his intervention on the sidelines of the riots: the author of the fatal shot against Nahel, whose death had been the trigger for several nights of urban violence.