One of the men who participated in the attack on three plainclothes police officers on July 20 in the Guillotière district of Lyon while they were trying to arrest a person suspected of theft, was indicted on Tuesday, the prosecution announced. from Lyon.
“The defendant (…) was indicted today on the charge of aggravated violence against police officers and placed in pre-trial detention,” said the prosecution.
Two police officers were injured on the evening of July 20 while trying with a colleague to arrest a person suspected of theft, in the middle of a crowd who violently attacked them.
On a video posted on social networks, we can see three plainclothes police officers, two men and a woman, being beaten and thrown by projectiles in front of the entrance to a convenience store in the sensitive Guillotière district.
Read alsoLyon: indignation after the lynching of police officers in the Guillotière district
After the arrest of a first suspect who was then exonerated, a second man, aged 26, in an irregular situation, was arrested on Sunday.
During a public hearing of the judge of freedoms of detention, the young man, who has no criminal record, "did not dispute the facts" and "presented his apologies", described to the AFP Me Laurent Bohé, lawyer for the three victims.
Investigations are continuing to arrest the other perpetrators.
The latter are "happy to know that a first person has been arrested", indicates their defender, adding that of the three police officers, one has resumed his service, and the other two are still arrested.
"They were quite upset by the events but it is obvious that learning about the arrests and identifications of the perpetrators reassures them and they are satisfied with the means implemented" because it is "important for them that the people who taken from them can be brought to justice,” continues Me Bohé.
Lyon prosecutor Nicolas Jacquet indicated that "the investigations were actively continuing to identify, locate and arrest the other perpetrators".
He said Monday that "the author of the tearing of a necklace at the origin of the intervention of the police", aged 18, and "already convicted of thefts", was "currently on the run" and " actively sought under a search warrant issued by the public prosecutor's office".
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin reacted on Twitter after the arrest of the first suspect, also a foreigner, indicating that he would be expelled.
Once this suspect was exonerated, he had written, in a second tweet: “in connection with the events or not, known for many questionings (…) this individual has nothing to do in our country”.
The man in question is the subject of a previous obligation to leave the territory (OQTF) and must indeed be expelled, a source familiar with the matter told AFP on Monday.
