Was the publicized arrest, in February 2020, of Piotr Pavlenski and his partner Alexandra de Taddeo, implicated in the Griveaux affair, irregular?
No, estimated the Paris Court of Appeal, which validated the procedure on Tuesday.
On January 26, the lawyers of the Russian artist and his legal partner had requested the nullity of investigative acts related to their arrest, which they considered irregular.
The Court of Appeal, following the requisitions of the general prosecutor's office, rejected all of these nullity requests.
“This decision proves that the media agitation is not worth legal reasoning.
The investigation will be able to continue in order to identify all the perpetrators of the offense and the nauseating acts of which Benjamin Griveaux was the victim ”, reacted the lawyers of the former government spokesperson, Me Richard Malka and Me Lorraine Gay.
READ ALSO>
Griveaux affair: from online publication to renunciation, chronology of a scandal
The couple was arrested on February 15, 2020 in the west of Paris, in front of the lens of a photographer from the Bestimage agency, directed by Michèle Marchand, a close friend of the Macron couple.
The publication by Paris Match of the photos of the arrest led the Paris prosecutor's office to open a separate preliminary investigation on February 28.
The investigation was entrusted to a judge who indicted two police officers on September 10 for "violation of professional secrecy" and one of the two, suspected of having falsified a report, also for "forgery in public writing ".
"The law has not been respected"
This arrest was ordered in the context of a case of violence during New Year's Eve, but occurred the day Benjamin Griveaux had filed a complaint for the resounding dissemination of videos of a sexual nature which had led him to withdraw from the municipal battle.
Piotr Pavlenski claimed responsibility for this publication.
The decision of the Paris Court of Appeal “is unfortunately not a surprise in this case,” responded Me Noemie Saidi-Cottier, lawyer for Alexandra de Taddeo.
"While the police have been indicted for the way they conducted this procedure and despite obvious breaches of professional secrecy, the investigating chamber finds nothing to complain about and considers that everything is fine for him. best in the best of legal worlds.
I do not share this position.
The law was not respected, ”she regretted.