The Court of Cassation refused to admit the appeal of Florian M., the police officer responsible for the fatal shooting of Nahel, who is contesting his pre-trial detention. His lawyer will file a new request for release.
The legal battle continues for Florian M., the 38-year-old police officer who shot Nahel fatally. This Wednesday, November 8, the Court of Cassation did not admit the appeal, filed by his lawyer, Me Laurent Franck-Lienard, who contests the continued pre-trial detention of the agent, BFMTV.com learned this Thursday, confirming information from the JDD.
“It is not a rejection, it is a decision of non-admission, that means that the appeal is not even studied by the Court of Cassation,” the lawyer explained to BFMTV.com. The police officer, indicted for intentional homicide and imprisoned since June 29, therefore remains in pre-trial detention at the Santé prison.
Since his incarceration, the police officer has already filed two requests for release, but neither has been accepted. “The Court of Cassation did not admit the appeal. It does not even authorize us to present our arguments and debate them,” he laments. “But we knew from the start, it’s a very sensitive issue,” he adds.
But Me Laurent Franck-Lienard does not intend to stop there. The lawyer will file, this Thursday, November 9, a new request for release – the third – with the investigating judge of the Nanterre court. The police officer and his lawyer also plan to take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights. “It’s a detention that is beginning to border on arbitrary,” he believes.
“This is unprecedented, we have never had a police officer in detention for more than four months after a shooting,” protests Laurent Franck-Lienard to BFMTV.com.
Both requests rejected
The motorcyclist was indicted for intentional homicide and placed in pre-trial detention at La Santé prison on June 29, after a fatal shooting of young Nahel, 17, two days earlier during a road check in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine).
He had filed a first request for release, which was rejected on July 6. He appealed this decision on August 1. Ten days later, on August 10, the investigating chamber of the Versailles Court of Appeal had confirmed continued pre-trial detention of the policeman.
At the same time, Me Laurent-Franck Liénard announced his appeal to the Court of Cassation, considering the detention of the police officer “illegal”. The detention of Florian M. “is not justified in law or in fact”, declared his counsel. The policeman “has nothing to do in prison: we will fight until he gets out,” he added.
On September 29, the police officer made a second request for release. This was refused on October 12 by the Nanterre judge of freedoms and detention. Florian M. appealed. But as in August, the investigating chamber of the Versailles Court of Appeal once again rejected the police officer’s request for release on October 26, BFMTV learned from a source close to the case.
Prevent any pressure
If the police officer is kept in detention, it is above all to “prevent pressure on the witnesses” in this case, the Versailles magistrates explained in their judgment, consulted by our colleagues from Parisian, on October 26. In particular, they want to prevent Florian M. and Julien L., his teammate that day, from “talking together”.
The two police officers claimed that Nahel had refused to comply with the orders and had driven off again, putting them in danger. However, according to the audio assessments, carried out by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), Florian M. allegedly declared: “You are going to take a bullet in the head”. A sentence that the police officer denies having uttered.
The magistrates also want to protect certain eyewitnesses, who gave “particularly incriminating” testimony against the two agents. But it is also to protect the suspect himself that the magistrates decided to keep him in detention, as well as to avoid any further conflagration. “It is obvious that the facts aroused a very strong feeling of animosity against the police,” justified the magistrates, cited by The Parisian.