A man, convicted of drug trafficking in 2017, asks for the review of his trial, two police officers having been convicted in 2021 of falsifying the minutes of his arrest, we learned Friday from concordant sources. The investigating committee of the Court of Review and Reconsideration studied his request on Thursday and will rule on June 22.
This investigating committee of the Court of Revision may reject it, order additional information or transmit it to the formation of judgment of the Court of Revision, which will decide whether or not to a new trial, which is extremely rare in France.
Arrested in April 2017, Aymen I. was sentenced on 1 June of the same year for possession of narcotics and offences related to false documents, to 10 months' imprisonment including 5 months firm and a 3-year ban from the country. He was then expelled to Egypt. However, in 2018, an investigation by the General Inspectorate of the National Police opened, which finally led to the trial, in February 2021, of six police officers of the BAC of the eighteenth arrondissement and two "informants".
Elements that "are likely to establish (his) innocence"
On 22 February 2021, Brigadier Karim M. nicknamed "Bylka", the main defendant, was sentenced to eight years in prison, including for corruption and drug trafficking, and found guilty of having taken out "insurance" to dealers in exchange for his protection. But on appeal, on June 28, 2021, he was acquitted of these last charges and sentenced to two years in prison, only for theft, forgery, misappropriation of a file and laundering tax fraud, being permanently banned from the function of police officer.
Aymen I. was a civil party to these two trials: it was "Bylka" and another policeman, considered his deputy, who had arrested him, on the indication of an informant. They claimed to have discovered a bag of cocaine in his car, the ownership of which he has always disputed. Aymen I.'s lawyer argues that, in the two decisions in the "Bylka" case, there are elements that "are capable of establishing (his) innocence" or "giving rise to serious doubts as to his guilt".
The two police officers were indeed convicted of "forgery" concerning the minutes of this arrest and, according to his lawyer, the court "confirms the doubt as to the origin of the narcotic product in the car" of Aymen I., "and, therefore, his guilt". "The referral to the Court of Revision is part of the desire for rehabilitation" of Aymen I. "who, even if he was well recognized by the justice victim of the forgery written by the police, remains officially today guilty of drug trafficking, which he has always strongly contested," said Joseph Hazan.