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Adama Traoré case: the long battle for medical expertise

2020-06-04T23:22:11.596Z


This 24-year-old man died during his arrest by the gendarmes on July 19, 2016. Since then, this case has become a battle between the legal experts who exonerate the gendarmes and the doctors chosen by the family who question their conclusions.


While 20,000 people gathered Tuesday, June 2 in front of the Paris tribunal de grande instance on the initiative of the family support committee of Adama Traoré, the investigation into the death of this young black man who died in 2016 during 'an arrest gives rise to a real battle of legal expertise. Autopsy, counter-autopsy, examinations, synthetic medical expert reports, private expert reports ... The examining magistrates, like the civil parties, have multiplied the recourse to doctors to understand how this young man of 24 years died in his city of Beaumont-sur-Oise (Val-d'Oise), July 19, 2016.

On this day, the weather is scorching. Three gendarmes proceed to the muscular arrest of Adama Traoré, who tries to escape while the police force want to arrest his brother. During his arrest, in an apartment where he took refuge, the young man was kept on the ground under the " body weight " of the three soldiers, according to the statements of one of the gendarmes. This technique corresponds to a ventral plating, a method decried by many associations in France. This version has since been denied by the military.

Was his death due to his state of health, to a previous illness? Compression of the rib cage during the intervention of the gendarmes? In other words, was the method of arresting the gendarmes involved? For four years, several specialists have studied these questions without being able to agree on the origin of his death. If the legal expert reports dismiss the responsibility of the gendarmes, those commissioned by the family call into question their conclusions each time. Le Figaro takes stock of this media case marked by medical controversy.

2016 - Two autopsies point to “ death by asphyxiation

Carried out at the end of July 2016, the first autopsy found death by " asphyxia syndrome " and noted " infectious lesions " without being able to explain what caused the death of Adama Traoré, who shows no trace of violence. But of these examinations, the prosecutor at the time Yves Jannier will only give a partial account and explain that the deceased presented " a very serious infection ", " affecting several organs " without mentioning asphyxiation. A few days later, a counter-autopsy carried out by a college of experts sweeps this track of an infection and confirms that of an " asphyxia syndrome ". Accused of lying, the prosecutor is seized of the case, which is then entrusted to Parisian judges. In September 2016, a forensic doctor having examined the organs of the deceased puts forward the hypothesis of a heart failure due to a malformation and notes several anomalies that may have contributed to the death.

• June 2017 - Expertise evokes previous weaknesses

A year later, a first appraisal , requested by the family, sweeps away the hypothesis of a heart failure, indicating that it " cannot be accepted with certainty ". However, she takes up the thesis of a death by asphyxiation, which would be linked to previous weaknesses, " associating in particular cardiomegaly (a heart larger than normal, Editor's note) and a systemic granulomatosis of the sarcoidosis type (inflammatory disease which generally affects the lungs, note) ". The two authors of the report also mention a very common genetic disease, sickle cell anemia. It " manifests itself in particular by anemia, painful crises and an increased risk of infections ", one can read on the website of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm). However, the two doctors did not comment on the responsibility of the gendarmes.

• October 2018 - A first summary expertise eliminates the responsibility of the gendarmes

The conclusions of the last two reports being contradictory, the three investigating judges in charge of the case order in January 2018 a synthetic medical expertise . After having postponed twice the rendering of their conclusions, the four doctors ended up rendering their work in October. They attribute the young man's death to his previous state of health. They indicate that his vital prognosis was " irreversibly engaged " before his arrest and that it is a genetic disease, sickle cell anemia, associated with a rare pathology, sarcoidosis, which led to asphyxia during an episode of stress and effort. The four doctors therefore clear the three gendarmes who participated in the arrest of the victim.

• March 2019 - A private second opinion revives the case

In mid-December 2018, the investigating judges closed their investigations without having issued indictments, the gendarmes having been placed under the status of assisted witness. Fearing a dismissal, the Traoré family tries to relaunch the investigation and provides March 11 a new expertise ordered by him. Written by four professors from Parisian hospitals, including a specialist in sickle cell anemia and one in sarcoidosis, it contradicts the previous summary and invites the judges to ask themselves the question of " positional or mechanical " asphyxia ; and therefore potentially of the technique of arresting the gendarmes. These results prompt the examining magistrates to reopen the investigation and turn, for the fourth time, to experts.

• March 2020 - A second summary expertise exonerates the gendarmes

Rendered on March 24, a week after the start of confinement, their expertise again exonerates the gendarmes . "Adama Traoré did not die from positional asphyxia, but from cardiogenic edema," conclude the three doctors, whose results were released last week. "We do not find any obvious pathology explaining this cardiogenic edema , add the expert doctors. Nevertheless, the association of pulmonary sarcoidosis, hypertrophic heart disease and a sickle cell trait could probably have contributed to it in a context of intense stress and physical exertion, under high concentration ”of cannabis. These conclusions are strongly contested by the civil parties.

• May 2020 - A second private expertise charges the military

A few days later, the family drew up a new report , written by a new expert, which implicated the gendarmes. According to Le Parisien , this professor of medicine, specialist in systemic diseases, built his conclusions on the various documents in the file and believes that "death follows an asphyxia syndrome, which follows a cardiogenic edema" . And this edema would itself follow "a positional asphyxia by the ventral plating" which resulted in "the body position hindering the normal exchange of gas and with the impossibility of releasing from this position", writes the doctor , cited by Le Parisien. The expert thus pronounced himself in favor of a death "following an asphyxial syndrome by ventral plating" . A technique of arrest that the gendarmes claim not to have used. The expertise has been added to the file.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-06-04

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