There are the pictures. Those filmed by a witness with his phone, which show a police officer opening fire on the driver of a Mercedes Class A registered in Poland. And there is the sound of the video, hardly audible. A few words exchanged by the two bikers who control the vehicle in the streets of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine), before one of them opened fire on Nahel, 17. One of the officials appears to be threatening the teenager with “putting a bullet in the head”.
Then his colleague would have launched “shoot him”, before the yellow car escaped. Brigadier Fabien M. fires his weapon. Hit in the chest, the victim died despite the intervention of the Samu, who gave him cardiac massage on the spot. Who spoke these words? And why ? These questions are at the heart of the investigation into intentional homicide by a person holding public authority, conducted by the IGPN, the police force.
“The intention to kill is beyond doubt”
The three lawyers defending the teenager’s family filed a complaint on Thursday for murder, complicity in murder and forgery in aggravated public writing as well as a request for expatriation. “His intention to kill is beyond doubt since it results from the soundtrack of the video he announces before his shot: ‘I’m going to put a bullet in your head'”, explained one of them. them, Me Yassine Bouzrou, to Release.
Another complaint was also filed against the second police officer for complicity. “When you watch the video, when you listen to it, it seems like he’s saying the words ‘shoot it. In these cases, it could constitute acts of complicity. So it is very important that all the light is shed and that all the responsibilities are established, ”said on France Info Me Jennifer Cambla, who also represents the family of Nahel *.
Investigations entrusted to experts from the gendarmerie
At the end of his police custody, Fabien M., the author of the shooting, was indicted for intentional homicide and placed in pre-trial detention. The policeman, who claims to have acted in self-defense, was confronted by his colleague by the investigators, who showed them the “amateur video broadcast on social networks”. “Only part of the remarks was recognized by one of the officials”, indicated the public prosecutor of Nanterre, Pascal Prache, during a press conference, without saying more.
The magistrate indicated that “technical investigations on these recordings have been entrusted to the IRCGN [Institut de recherche criminelle de la gendarmerie nationale], in order to specify their content and their author”. How will the gendarmerie technicians proceed to analyze the recording? “There are software programs that allow you to work on all wavelengths and eliminate parasitic noise. That’s how you can isolate a voice from background noise,” explains 20 minutes General François Daoust, former director of the IRCGN and of the judicial pole of the gendarmerie.
“It may take some time”
There is a good chance, he says, that the analyzes will make it possible to reconstruct what was said by the police. “Once we have isolated the voices, there is nothing easier than to compare them to those of the protagonists of the case, since we have them at hand,” he adds.
The work of the experts of the gendarmerie should therefore make it possible to “really say to whom belongs which voice”. “But it may take time to reconstruct the message spoken depending on the quality of the recording,” he warns.
*Nahel’s family lawyers did not respond to requests from 20 Minutes.