A new act is playing out in the case of the feminicide of Chahinez Daoud, killed by her spouse on May 4 in Mérignac (Gironde). The police apparatus looks, this Tuesday, on its own failings: six agents pass in disciplinary council so that their responsibilities are assessed. These bodies, which are held in Bordeaux and Paris (for the highest ranking), will propose sanctions, in a non-binding manner. Then instructs the Minister of the Interior, or the Director General of the National Police (DGPN), to take any disciplinary measures. To decide, they will have elements taken from the report of the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), revealed Monday by the Parisian, which indicate that it is at the same time failures upstream and downstream of the feminicide which are reproached to the civil servants.
Two months before the tragedy, in March 2021, Chahinez Daoud had lodged a complaint for violence committed by her spouse. The latter had come out a few weeks earlier from a detention which he had received – already – for violence against him. The complaint for the month of March is then recorded by an agent himself convicted of domestic violence. As part of this other case, the official was removed from the national police, following a disciplinary council held in September, according to AFP and the Parisian. According to a union source, he is therefore not one of the agents who come before this body today.
The complaint of Chahinez Daoud was however taken in a lacunar manner, pointed out a joint report of the general inspectorates of the administration (IGA) and justice (IGJ). As told Release, it is also the acts of investigation and the feedback of information following the testimony of the young woman that are lacking. Few due diligence is undertaken to arrest his spouse and future murderer, even though he is followed by the Penitentiary Integration and Probation Service (Spip) following his imprisonment. CCTV images, as well as the testimony of a friend of the victim, further confirm the aggression she has just suffered, and the climate of fear in which she lives. A few days after his complaint, finally, a meeting “telephone serious danger” was held between the departmental authorities in charge of the fight against domestic violence.
Dysfunctions prior to feminicide
The IGPN report (subsequent to that of the IGA and the IGJ) proposed direct sanctions against several police officers involved in the dysfunctions. Say “first group”, these sanctions, the lightest in the public service, can be taken without going through a disciplinary board. A rare occurrence, but which testifies to the sensitivity of the case: the director general of the national police, Frédéric Veaux, has decided to go beyond these recommendations. First by pronouncing a reprimand against the zonal director of public security in the southwest, however “Bleached” by IGPN according to Franceinfo. Above all, by returning six police officers to the disciplinary councils.
According to the IGPN report cited by the Parisian, the chief of urban security of the west division is accused in particular of having failed in his “Obligation of discernment”, by not entrusting the file opened following Chahinez Daoud’s complaint to a specialized unit. The head of the judicial support group of the same division is targeted for “Professional negligence” in this investigation which fell to her, because she would have abstained “Any initiative aimed at relaunching the investigations between March 22 and May 4, 2021”. The same grievances are addressed to an investigating police officer under his orders.
Beyond these dysfunctions prior to femicide, it is also failures subsequent to it that are at the center of the disciplinary councils of this Tuesday. Thus, the director of public security (DDSP) of the Gironde, as well as his head of the west division, are accused of the same thing: not having informed their hierarchy of the conviction for domestic violence of the agent who recorded the complaint from Chahinez Daoud. And this in defiance of “Possible media repercussions”, writes the IGPN, quoted by the Parisian. According to the daily, before appearing in the chained Duck in the heart of the summer of 2021, this information had not been transmitted to the Ministry of the Interior. Another annoying lack of communication for an executive who promised to make the cause of women a priority for the five-year term.