Four years in prison and the ban on exercising the profession of police officer: the Advocate General requested Tuesday, September 29, on appeal, heavy sentences against two Marseille police officers accused of having beaten, without reason , a teenager in 2018.
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The two men described as "
exemplary
" by their hierarchy had been sentenced in May by the Marseille Criminal Court to four years in prison, two of which were closed, but the judge had left it to their hierarchy to decide on a professional ban.
This prohibition, explained the Advocate General before the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal Denis Vanbremeersch, "
I would not have asked if they had recognized the facts
".
But since the start of this affair, Brigadier-Chief Lionel Pourtalet and the peacekeeper Thomas Bagnus deny in block having hit the teenager.
Both dressed in a black shirt and wearing a black mask, cropped hair, supported in the room by many colleagues, they reaffirmed at the bar their "
innocence
" and their suffering.
“
This victimization must stop!
», Said the lawyer of the civil party, Me Linda Sennaoui.
"
The only victim is Ishaq
", she hammered, referring to the "
shattered life
" of a young man who "
now has vision problems because of the fracture of the orbital floor of which he suffered. and is followed by a psychiatrist for his trauma
”.
Hit with kicks and punches
On February 20, 2018, Ishaq, then 16, was visiting his brother in Marseille when he was kicked and punched after shopping in a night grocery store.
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He explained that two passengers in a police car started hitting him for no reason after pushing him away to a dead end so as not to be seen.
His testimony was corroborated by the grocer who saw him immediately after the assault, and also noticed the police crew.
His attackers were identified by the description of the vehicle and officials.
Above all, the DNA of one of the police officers had been found on a pen marked "
Alliance
" (a police union) that the latter had dropped on the spot, and that of the other police officer on a sleeve of the tracksuit of the victim.
Masters Pourtalet and Bagnus, who do not deny having patrolled this alley that evening, claim not to have met Ishaq and wonder if the latter "
did not have a bad meeting
".
"
The bad meeting
", quipped the lawyer general, "
it is perhaps that they did not fall on the good victim
", because Ishaq was "
neither a small robber, nor a dealer
".
The defense asked that "
the doubt benefits the accused
", and pleaded for release.
The deliberation will be known on November 3.