François Thierry sued Emmanuel Fansten for defamation for having denounced the troubled methods of the service he headed. He was sentenced this Friday by the Paris court. A case that recently inspired the film “Investigation into a State Scandal”.
The former boss of the Central Office for the Suppression of Illicit Drug Trafficking (Ocrtis), François Thierry, was sentenced this Friday by the Paris court to pay 2,000 euros in damages to the journalist of Release Emmanuel Fansten and his publisher for abusive procedure. The former “narcotics” boss had launched a lawsuit against the authors of the book the infiltrator in May 2017 had finally abandoned the procedure last January.
The court denounced “late character” of this withdrawal even though the former narcotics chief persisted in his accusations against the authors of the book without giving them the possibility of explaining themselves to the judges because of his withdrawal. “François Thierry abused his right to take legal action and caused the defendants harm”ruled the court in pronouncing his sentence.
A first decision in November
Published in March 2017, the book the infiltrator followed an investigation by Emmanuel Fansten published in Release. The journalist described in particular “the central role” by Francois Thierry “in the importation into France of several tens of tons of cannabis in connection with one of the biggest European traffickers”. The book was recently adapted for the cinema, under the title State Scandal Investigationdirected by Thierry de Peretti and released in theaters at the beginning of February.
François Thierry, narcotics boss from 2010 to 2016, had already sued Emmanuel Fansten and our newspaper following this investigation. In November 2021, the Court of Cassation acquitted the journalist and ordered the police officer to pay him compensation.
The co-author of the offending book, the former undercover informant Hubert Avoine, who was also being prosecuted by François Thierry, died in October 2018.