Two young people, Wesley and Djibrile, were sentenced this Friday evening to five-year prison terms, including two farms fitted out under electronic bracelets, by the Paris minors' assize court.
They were on trial for having participated in a Molotov cocktail attack on July 4, 2016 against a crew of the Parisian Inter-backer Surveillance Group (GPIS), in the city of Amandiers (XXth), which had left three injured, one seriously.
Their two other co-defendants, Oumar and Zakari, were acquitted.
Lighter sentences than those required by the Advocate General, who had demanded four to eight years in prison for three defendants and a single acquittal, in favor of Zakari.
“My clients are devastated.
They would have liked the four defendants to be convicted,” lamented Me Philippe de Veulle, the lawyer for the civil parties.
"Not to mention that justice was very slow to judge these facts, which took place six years ago".
“The jurors recognized that there had been an attempted homicide, but that justice had not caught the right people.
We have demonstrated that our client was at home, with his family, at the time of the events, ”analyzed Grégoire Etrillard, the lawyer for one of the two acquitted, Oumar.
Before recalling that "there is no winner at the Assize Court".
"An acquittal is also the failure of the justice system, which crushed my client for six years, before finally recognizing that there was no reason to do so," he added.
To read alsoA night of ordeal and six years of trauma: the police officers of the HLM burned with the Molotov cocktail testify
On the evening of the events, three agents in charge of the security of the HLM housing estates in Paris had just carried out a round of security, in the so-called Banane housing estate, when they had been attacked by a group of about ten hooded people and dressed in black.
Several Molotov cocktails had been thrown inside the passenger compartment of the Renault Scénic of the GPIS, where the agents had taken their places, pending their next assignment.
The officers, all burned, including one seriously, were then chased for nearly a kilometer by assailants who continued to target them with fireworks mortars.
The unexpected arrival of a police patrol put an end to the chase.
The four defendants who appeared before the Assize Court for minors in Paris had been identified on the basis of telephone investigations, and the statements of a young person, who had sat down to eat in police custody.
Four other minors, who were under 16 at the time of the incident, were sent to the juvenile court.
However, no court date has yet been set.