The man is indicted for “attempted intentional homicide on a person holding public authority, repeated aggravated refusal to comply, repeated driving of a vehicle despite being ordered to return his driving license and repeated driving under the influence of an alcoholic state”, we learned from a judicial source.
He was “placed in pre-trial detention at the place of his hospitalization”, specified the same source.
Seriously injured by police shooting in the chest, the driver was heard by the investigating judge at the hospital where he was admitted after the fact, according to the prosecution.
The 38-year-old man was placed in police custody on Tuesday for refusing to comply twice during a check of his vehicle in the 18th arrondissement by police officers on mountain bikes.
The latter fired nine times, according to the prosecution, injured him and his passenger seated in the front, hit in the head. The 21-year-old died the next day.
The suspect’s lawyer, Me Ibrahim Shalabi, said at a press conference on Thursday that the occupants of the car were not wanted and that the vehicle was blocked by a bus when the police opened fire.
“The car could not move,” he said.
“He refused to comply for fear of going to prison (…) for fear that the police would arrest him because he did not have his license”, explained for his part Sonia (first name changed), the sister of the respondent, at the same press conference.
– “Unjustified” violence –
“It’s true that my brother had problems with the law, but that doesn’t justify the violence that was committed,” she said. “His criminal record does not legitimize the nine bullets fired,” she insisted.
The police custody of the three police officers who used their weapon was lifted on Tuesday after forty-eight hours for “continuation of investigations” as part of the judicial investigation opened on Tuesday.
They are not indicted at this stage.
On Wednesday, the family of Rayana, the passenger killed by police fire, had indicated their intention to file a complaint against the driver and the police.
According to Me Sylvie Noachovitch, the family lawyer, the young woman, “without a criminal record, did not know the driver”, having met him the same evening in a nightclub.
Several associations called for a rally on Saturday in Paris to demand the repeal of article L435-1 of the internal security code which regulates the use of firearms by the police.
Under this article, the police are authorized to shoot in the event of refusal to comply if they cannot stop the car other than by the use of weapons and if, in his flight, the driver is “likely to perpetrate ( …) attacks on their life or physical integrity or those of others”.
This affair revived the question of the use of force by the police and gendarmes and fed, on the eve of the first round of the legislative elections, a lively controversy between the head of rebellious France Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his political opponents.
“I cannot accept (…) that we insult those who risk their lives to protect ours”, launched Thursday Emmanuel Macron to Mr. Mélenchon, who had denounced a “police who kill”.
