In this story, nothing seems to work. On the justice side, the Versailles prosecutor’s office, more precisely the public prosecutor Maryvonne Caillibotte, is accused by a lawyer of having covered up police violence by trapping the main witness who was about to transmit a video to the General Inspectorate of the national police (IGPN). On the police side, a complaint with civil action was filed on December 23, 2021 for “forgery in public writing and use of forgery”, “voluntary violence” and “attempted judgment fraud” against five police officers and against X. An independent investigating judge was seized.
Me Yassine Bouzrou thus sent a letter, which Release was able to consult Éric Dupond-Moretti, the Keeper of the Seals, in order to report facts “likely to lead to disciplinary proceedings against a public prosecutor”. The Department of Justice told France Info than “the services were seized to analyze the documents and the mail”.
A mysterious arrest and a broken nose
Let’s get back to the facts. On November 7, 2021, police officers from the Chesnay police station (Yvelines) are looking for a 15-year-old girl who, according to her parents, has run away. The agents arrive at the home of José, also 15, the teenager’s boyfriend. The young girl is there, but the police are not content to recover her, they also attack José and decide to arrest him. For what reasons? “You should ask them, unfortunately I’m not in their heads”asks Yassine Bouzrou.
The young man is then abused, he will come out with a broken nose. In a video that our colleagues from France Info and chained duck were able to consult, the teenager was tackled on the bed by two agents, one of whom threatened him with “break his arm” and “the mouth”. The other policeman positions himself on the young man’s chest for more than a minute, before managing to handcuff him with his hands behind his back. He is helped by a third policewoman who holds his legs as he tries to struggle by kicking. José must now go before the juvenile judge: the police accuse him of acts of contempt and rebellion.
The video in question comes from the phone of José’s mother, Maria. She had the reflex to film the scene when the police began to be a little too enterprising with her son. For her, it will be proof that she can bring to the IGPN later. Maria therefore obtains an appointment with the police force on November 18, 2021. Problem, the day before, she is placed in police custody for a period of 48 hours by the same police officers who had arrested her son. It is explained to her that she has committed violence against the agents.
Confessions without a lawyer or interpreter
Maria is then referred to the Versailles prosecutor’s office, where she goes before a deputy prosecutor for a criminal composition: a procedure which makes it possible to propose a sanction in order to avoid a trial, “which is only possible when people recognize the facts”, says Me Bouzrou. But, a new difficulty, Maria, a 52-year-old Colombian housekeeper living alone with her son, does not speak French and, above all, she cannot read or write it. Alone, without a lawyer or interpreter capable of explaining to her the scope of her gesture, she signs a full confession with a cross and admits having committed violence. She is definitively sentenced for violence against five people in authority and must pay a fine of 200 euros as well as damages for each of the agents.
According to the prosecution, contacted by AFP, “the offense of violence can be retained, even without physical contact, if justice considers that there has been an emotional shock”. “The mother was taken into custody as part of an investigation into the circulation of images on the net, where the police were particularly identifiable”is it indicated.
An assertion that Yassine Bouzrou formally denies. “Let’s imagine that a person kicks a baseball bat in a windshield, a person inside the vehicle could effectively claim to be the victim of an emotional shockexplains the lawyer. But in this case, the mother of the family filmed a scene, without ever posting it on social networks, in order to show it to the police force, let’s be serious.
For the council, what happened was a criminal offense that bears a name: an “attempt to swindle the judgment”. “I accuse the prosecutor of Versailles of fraud in judgment. I seized the Keeper of the Seals so that he himself can seize the Superior Council of the Judiciary. We are going very far in circumventing the law.” A complaint with civil action was thus filed on December 23, 2021 for “false public writing and use of forgery”, “willful violence” and “attempted fraud in judgment” against five police officers and against X. A judge in independent instruction has been seized.
After the article in Le Canard enchaîné published on Wednesday, the Versailles prosecutor’s office announced that it had seized the IGPN. “This video requires digging into the methods of the intervention from the angle of the techniques used, the relevance and proportionality in relation to the objective of this police patrol”he said to AFP.
Contacted by Releasethe public prosecutor Maryvonne Caillibotte indicates that she does not have “additional comments to add to those reported by the AFP dispatch of January 26, 2022”.