The police officer in police custody in the Otman case, the fourth case of alleged police violence in Marseille on the sidelines of the riots at the end of June at the beginning of July, was indicted and placed under judicial control, we learned Thursday from the wooden floor.
The policeman had been placed in police custody as part of an investigation opened for “violence in a meeting with a weapon leading to total incapacity for work (ITT) for more than eight days by a person holding public authority”, “abuse of authority to thwart the execution of the law “and” threat or act of intimidation in order to determine a victim not to file a complaint or to retract “, had detailed the public prosecutor of Marseille, Dominique Laurens, Wednesday to AFP, confirming the initial information from the daily Release.
fourth victim
The precise conditions of the judicial review should be detailed by the Marseille prosecutor’s office on Thursday. “The only thing that matters to me is whether it is forbidden to exercise or not, in the meantime I will not comment,” reacted Me Nicolas Chambardon, the victim’s lawyer, to AFP.
The investigation into alleged police violence is the fourth to have been opened in the second city of France on the sidelines of the episode of urban violence which had set the country ablaze at the end of June and the beginning of July following the death of young Nahel, killed by a policeman during a road check in Nanterre, in the Parisian suburbs, at the end of June.
Hit by multiple people
The facts would have occurred around 10:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. in the La Plaine district, on the night of July 1 to 2, when the police arrested several people coming out of a tobacco shop looted by rioters. Among them, Otman, 36, against whom no charge was brought, had ended the night at the Timone hospital, with several facial fractures.
“Very many elements in the file indicate that he was hit by several people”, resulting in loss of consciousness and seven fractures, his lawyer told AFP. Otman, who filed a complaint on July 19, was heard two days later by the police, the IGPN, in charge of the investigation, according to Me Chambardon.
It was during this same night from July 1 to 2 that a 27-year-old young man, Mohamed Bendriss, had died, after having very likely been hit by an LBD shot, and that Hedi, 22, had been seriously injured after being hit by an LBD shot in the head and struck.