Eight years to the day after the events, more than three years after a seven-year prison sentence at first instance, the two police officers accused of the rape of a Canadian tourist on the premises of the research and intervention brigade (BRI ) of Paris left, free, Friday April 22, the Court of Assizes of Val-de-Marne under the applause of their close relations. Antoine Quirin, 43, and Nicolas Redouane, 52, were declared innocent of the rape of Emily Spanton, 42, after a trial that lasted three weeks. It had been postponed twice, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and then the hospitalization of a lawyer.
On Wednesday April 20, Advocate General Christophe Auger requested confirmation of the initial sentence, citing police officers who had “forced the consent of the young woman”. The court did not follow him. “It’s a fair decision, estimated Mand Pascal Garbarini, and a strong reminder that when you accuse someone, you have to provide evidence on the facts that you claim to denounce. »
His client, Nicolas Redouane, has been suspended since being implicated, while his colleague and co-defendant has been reinstated in the national police but is now assigned to mainly administrative tasks. Mand Anelore Compoint, lawyer for Antoine Quirin alongside Mand Thierry Herzog, welcomes a decision made after “a trial carried out calmly, where all the elements were debated, where nothing was swept under the carpet. This case ended up becoming what it should be: a criminal case and not an over-mediatized incident involving the police.
“Many inaccuracies”
On the night of April 22 to 23, 2014, Emily Spanton, a Canadian tourist, had met several BRI police officers in an Irish pub near 36, quai des Orfèvres, the headquarters of the Parisian judicial police. After a few drinks and exchanges of kisses with officials, the young woman was offered an impromptu visit to the premises of the brigade. She did not come out until an hour later, in a state of shock, to immediately denounce the unwanted sexual relations to the officials guarding the building. The investigation had mobilized significant resources, commensurate with the excitement caused by the revelation of the case: nearly 150 police officers had been the subject of genetic samples and extensive investigations had been carried out on the telephone.
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