The former prefect of Loire-Atlantique Claude d’Harcourt was placed under the status of witness assisted by the Rennes Court of Appeal.
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© LOIC VENANCE / AFP
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PMore than three years after the death of Steve Maia Caniço in Nantes during the Music Festival, the Rennes Court of Appeal canceled the indictment for involuntary homicide of the former prefect of Loire-Atlantique Claude d’Harcourt, announced Friday, October 28 the prosecution of the Breton capital. The former official is granted assisted witness status, the prosecution said in a statement. The indictment of the former sub-prefect Johann Mougenot is confirmed.
The Court of Appeal had been seized of an appeal filed by the lawyers of the three principals charged in this case, the prefect at the time and his chief of staff, as well as the commissioner who directed the police operation on the banks of the Loire, Grégoire Chassaing. The first two requested the cancellation of their indictment. They disputed in particular the use of an expert agency, Index, which produced a video reconstruction of the police intervention added to the investigation file. Police commissioner Grégoire Chassaing, who led the controversial operation, remains under investigation.
READ ALSODeath of Steve: “In the end, it is the police who pay for the broken pots”
Justice validates the “nullity of the expertise”
In its judgment delivered on Friday, the investigating chamber of the Rennes Court of Appeal “declared the nullity of the expertise” of the Index agency, as requested by the three officials.
Steve Maia Caniço, 24-year-old extracurricular animator, had disappeared after a police operation intended to put an end to an electro evening on the banks of the Loire on the night of June 21 to 22, 2019. Analysis of Steve’s phone records made it possible to locate his fall in the Loire at 4:33 a.m., during the police intervention.
Saying they felt threatened and were victims of projectiles, the police responded by firing 33 tear gas canisters, 12 defense bullets (LBD) and 10 de-encirclement grenades. Witnesses said they were blinded by a cloud of tear gas. Seven people fell in the Loire during the police intervention, not counting Steve, whose body was not found until July 29, a little over a kilometer upstream.
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