The Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez will file a complaint for defamation against the lawyer of Souleyman A., the Chadian student arrested on Friday April 14 in Paris on the sidelines of the demonstrations against the pension reform, learned Le Figaro
from
a source close to the case.
This complaint will be filed following comments "
made against the police headquarters and targeting certain police officers
" by Me Arié Alimi this Monday morning on
BFMTV
but also on his Twitter account, according to this source.
Me Arié Alimi intervened live on the continuous news channel to react to the dismissal of the case targeting his client, suspected by the police of having participated in a trash fire on Friday evening in Paris.
He explained in particular that Souleyman A. "
was arrested for the first time in the evening by the BRAV-M, this crew who committed racist insults and which he (
his client, editor's note)
also claims that there was assaults.
We find him a few days later on the Place de la Concorde with four police officers whom he does not know at first that they are police officers, who suggest that people who come out of the metro go and burn garbage cans.
That's what it says, and that's what others say too
“, he described.
The lawyer also added that “
the investigation and the elements of the file proved that he had not participated in these facts.
The police obviously lied.
»
Me Arié Alimi confirmed that he and his client were going to seize the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) in order to obtain the images of the surveillance cameras placed around the Concorde metro station, the alleged meeting place between Souleyman A. and the police officers who arrested him: “
We already have elements which show that they
(the police officers, editor’s note)
may have been complicit in these trash fires from a legal point of view.
We have a question, it is to know if it is a practice which is usual to see policemen taking part or causing fires of dustbins?
I think this is an important point.
Remember this affair a few years ago in 2015 with far-right elected officials who burned cars to increase the feeling of insecurity.
One can wonder if today the police do not use this type of method as well
”.
At the announcement of the classification without follow-up to the procedure targeting his client on Sunday evening, Me Arié Alimi had also written on Twitter: “
Souleyman and free.
The police had lied.
The prefecture had lied.
Did the police cause and participate in fires?
Is this a common practice on the instruction of the prefecture.
The videos will speak.
To be continued
”.
It is these remarks and those made on BFMTV this Monday morning, which caused the announcement of the filing of a complaint by the prefect of police.
According to a source, these remarks “
fall under the criminal qualification of defamation towards a public institution and in particular the police headquarters
”.
“Absence of a sufficiently serious offence”
The 23-year-old student was arrested on Friday April 14 in Paris, rue du Chevalier-de-Saint-George, by plainclothes police who suspected him and two other students of having started a trash fire.
According to the police, the three students tried to light a first garbage fire at the exit of the Concorde metro station, before retracting and heading towards the rue du Chevalier de Saint-Georges, sheltered from the looks.
Still according to these police officers, the students then lit a trash fire.
Souleyman A., meanwhile, was suspected of having been on the lookout, as several concordant sources told Le
Figaro
.
Arrested,
".
A version contested by Souleyman A. and Me Arié Alimi.
The student, represented by the voice of his lawyer, assures us that it was the plainclothes police who incited him and the two other students to commit damage in the street.
Sunday evening, the procedure which aimed Souleyman A. was dismissed for “
lack
of a
sufficiently serious offense
”.
According to the Paris prosecutor's office, the young man "
did not appear at the immediate scene of the offense
".
The other two students involved were referred for immediate appearance for "
damage by fire
".
The hearing has been adjourned to May 22, 2023.
The student had already been arrested with six other people on the night of March 20 to 21 in Paris.
During this arrest, police officers from the Motorized Violent Actions Repression Brigade (Brav-M) were discreetly recorded by one of the arrested.
In this audio recording, several officials could be heard making humiliating, threatening and intimidating remarks towards the arrested and in particular the student.
According to the young man, one of the police officers even “
caught him by the sex
”.
Released without being prosecuted, he had filed a complaint for "
sexual assault
" and "
threat to commit the crime of rape
" against one of the police officers, but also for "
violation of individual freedoms
", "
violence
" and "
false public writing
".
A judicial inquiry was opened to shed light on the behavior of the police officers that evening.
