The Bobigny court on Thursday sentenced six police officers to terms ranging from six to 12 months in prison, including six months closed for some, for violence and racist insults during the arrest of an Egyptian in April 2020.
The police officer who had declared “a bicot like that, that does not swim” against the arrested, was sentenced to six months in prison suspended. Four of his colleagues were sentenced to 12 months, including 6 months fixed. The Bobigny prosecutor’s office had not retained violence in its requisitions, only insults, and asked for lower penalties. A police officer was sentenced to 12 months suspended prison sentence for “not preventing violence”.
The court agreed to join the case on the facts of “racist insults” to the direct citations of the civil party for the facts of “violence”.
“Ha! ha! It’s leaking, you should have hooked a ball to its foot “
“I am happy, justice has been done. I have been wronged, assaulted. I’m happy with this decision, ”said Samir Elgendy, the victim, after deliberation.
On April 26, 2020 at around 1:30 a.m., police officers arrested on Île-Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) the 29-year-old Egyptian national suspected of theft of equipment on a construction site and who had tried, according to sources police officers, to flee by throwing themselves into the Seine.
On the facts of theft, the case was dismissed. After having taken the young man out of the river, one of the police officers had declared: “A bicot like that, it does not swim”, according to a video captured by a local resident and broadcast by the journalist. Taha Bouhafs on social networks.
“Ha! ha! It’s leaking, you should have hung a ball on its foot, ”we could also hear.
The police officer who had used the term “bicot” had pleaded “the joke in bad taste” during his trial in November and the “need to decompress and make the gallery laugh”, had also declared the police officer, from the staff of night of the Territorial Directorate of Public Security of Hauts-de-Seine.
In this case which had aroused indignation, two police officers were sanctioned administratively in October by five days of firm exclusion.
The Director General of the National Police, Frédéric Veaux, went beyond the recommendations of the disciplinary council of the Prefecture of Police, which had proposed three.