A new suspicion of blunders in this prison where a “climate of violence and silence” reigns.
An investigation into “violence” was opened after the broadcast of a video showing two guards at the Villefranche-sur-Saône prison (Rhône) hitting an inmate, we learned on Wednesday from consistent sources.
A video, “relayed by relatives of people detained since mid-February” and filmed “from a cell in the Villefranche penitentiary center”, “clearly shows two people in uniform beating a detained person”, assures the International Observatory of Prisons (OIP) in a press release.
“A procedure is opened for counts of violence by a person holding public authority.
The investigation is ongoing,” said public prosecutor Laetitia Francart.
Contacted by AFP, the regional prison administration simply confirmed that “the two agents”, seen in the images, have been “dismissed from service, placed on unjustified absence, since February 7.
One is until March 31, the other until April 14.”
The one-minute extract was relayed by the website of the regional daily Le Progrès.
A “climate of violence and silence” in the establishment
“A few weeks after the filming of this video, a second detained person contacted the OIP, claiming to have also been hit and insulted by guards,” further maintains the association, which works to respect human rights in prison.
“This is not the first time that the association has received cases of violence in this establishment,” according to the same source.
In July 2022, a guard at the Villefranche penitentiary center was sentenced to 12 months in prison and suspended for two years for having assaulted an inmate, recalls the OIP, which in 2017 produced a investigation which “detailed the climate of violence and secrecy which then seemed to reign in the prison”.
The number of prisoners in France reached a new record with 75,897 people incarcerated on January 1, according to a latest report from the OIP, made public in February.