“Being called crazy, imbecile, MacGyver, that’s one thing, but being accused of perjury before the National Assembly, there, we’re on the other side of the white line, that’s fine too far. » At the helm of the Marseille Criminal Court, Didier Raoult thus justified, on Friday September 9, the defamation complaint he had filed, in October 2020, against infectious disease specialist Karine Lacombe, head of department at Saint-Antoine hospital. , in Paris.
This hearing, for Mr. Raoult, took place in an unfavorable context. Monday, September 5, a new report from the general inspection of social affairs and that for higher education questioning it was made public. He points to “serious malfunctions and breaches of health or research regulations” within the Mediterranean Infection University Hospital Institute (IHU-MI), when it was directed by Mr. Raoult, until his forced retirement. The ministers of health and research immediately seized the public prosecutor of Marseille.
“Questioning of Parisian doctors”
At the end of July 2020, at the end of the first wave of the Covid-19 epidemic, there were already many doubts about the professor’s practices, but the context was different, and Mr. Raoult was still very listened to. Karine Lacombe, specialist in infectiology, participates on Europe 1 in a major interview hosted by Michèle Cotta. The journalist evokes the scientific controversy which is then raging on the treatment with hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with Covid-19.
A few days earlier, before the parliamentary commission of inquiry, Didier Raoult defended the massive policy of tests and the prescription of hydroxychloroquine put in place at the IHU, affirming that the epidemic caused fewer deaths in Marseille than in Paris. “He seriously questioned the Parisian doctors”, raises Michèle Cotta. Karine Lacombe then retorts: “Of course, so you know that there are legal actions for lies in front of the parliamentary committee which are in progress. »
The criminal court will have to say whether this sentence is defamation or freedom of expression. “What Mr. Raoult reproaches to Mme Lacombe, pointed out M.e Brice Grazzini, defender of the Marseille scientist, it is not so much to have spoken of lies in front of the parliamentary commission as to make think, in the ear of the listeners, that there are legal actions in progress. » For the lawyer, the words of Mme Lacombe were “the starting signal given to many individuals, sometimes disturbed, to attack and harass Didier Raoult”. He claims a provision of 10,000 euros in damages pending a future hearing on civil interests.
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