The case of the violent hazing of 2012 at the Paris firefighters returns to court.
From Wednesday September 23, five former firefighters will appear on appeal, for violence and sexual assault on two of their colleagues.
Read also: Decision on February 5 for 10 ex-firefighters tried for a violent hazing
In February 2019, ten former members of the prestigious gymnastics team of the Paris fire brigade (BSPP) were sentenced to terms ranging from three months in prison to six months suspended.
Five of these men, accused of inflicting violence and / or sexual assault on two of their colleagues, appealed in this case which had led to the dissolution of the gymnastics team and tarnished the reputation of the BSPP.
The trial is scheduled from Wednesday to Friday, in the afternoon, at the Paris Court of Appeal.
"
We hope to see the guilt of the defendants confirmed, which will finally turn the page, more than eight years after the facts
", declared to AFP Me Nicolas Cellupica, lawyer of the two plaintiffs.
The hazing session took place on May 6, 2012 at the back of a coach traveling between Colmar and Paris, after a sports performance by the BSPP team.
All the actors were in their early twenties at the time.
Two of the five defendants are tried for “
sexual assault
”, including the one who received the heaviest sentence in the first instance, six months in prison plus a year of suspension.
He had put a plastic bottle on his colleague's anus.
The pretext of a "rite of passage"
The prosecution had requested a year in prison and a suspended year against this ex-firefighter of about 40 years, who spent a month and a half in pre-trial detention and was registered in Fijais, the automated judicial file of the authors of sexual offenses.
The three other firefighters on appeal are being prosecuted for violence or for failure to prevent a crime.
At first instance, defendants expressed their regret at the bar.
Their lawyers, who dispute any sexual assault, had argued that the violence was "
consented
" as part of a
traditional
"
rite of passage
" at the brigade.
The two victims had told a completely different story.
"
I felt humiliated like never before,
" said one of them.
The BSPP is a military unit of which some 8,000 firefighters intervene in Paris and its inner suburbs.
Its gymnastics team, one of its most famous flag bearers, was regularly invited to perform on television sets or at public events.
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