France: Policing
01 January 1991
France: Policing
artdoc April=1995
Amnesty highlights deaths in custody
Amnesty International has produced a 34-page document on
`shootings, killings and alleged ill-treatment by law enforcement
officers' in France. A high proportion of those ill-treated by
the police are of `non-European origin... from the Maghreb
countries, the Middle East and Central and West Africa. Alleged
physical and sexual abuse is often accompanied by specifically
racist insults as well as general verbal abuse.'
Of particular concern to Amnesty is the excessive use of force
and the abusive use of firearms by law enforcement officers.
Since 1988, 27 people have been shot and killed by the police.
Eleven of these killings occurred in the 18 months up to June
1994. Amnesty examines the inadequacies of the investigating
procedures in the following cases.
* Makomé M'Bowle (see bulletin no.4). The investigation into the
shooting of this 17-year-old Zairian in the Grandes-Carrières
police station in Paris in April 1993 is still taking place.
However, a police officer was immediately committed to prison
after M'Bowle's death.
* The officer arrested for the killing of the 17-year-old
Algerian, Rachid Ardjouni (see bulletin no 4) was immediately
released by a judge under judicial control, against the wishes
of the prosecutor. The victim's family successfully appealed
against the police officer's release. The investigation is still
in progress.
* 19-year-old Maftah Belkham, of Algerian origin, was shot
through the head at point blank range by a police officer in
Firminy, near St. Etienne. Belkham had been one of four youths
who had burgled a shop. When the officer drew his gun and
apprehended him, the youth stabbed him in the upper thigh with
a screwdriver.The General Inspectorate of the National Police
(IGPN) was called in to carry out an investigation. It
recommended to the prosecutor that the shooting was an act of
self-defence. Amnesty International, however, says that the
officer over-reacted and that there was no threat to his life.
* Mourad Tchier was shot in the back through the shoulder blade
on 27 December 1993 after the police chased a stolen car with
four people in it to Saint-Fons, on the outskirts of Lyons.
When the Lyons prosecutor requested an investigation to
identify the cause of death, his action was widely interpreted
as a move by the authorities to protect the police officer. On
2 February 1994, the victim's family, who were excluded from the
investigation, made an official complaint of murder, thereby
obliging the Prosecutor to open a new investigation, based on the
civil party's complaint. Only at this stage was the police
officer who fired the shot indicted. He was not, however, placed
under judicial control or placed in detention. By August 1994,
the results of the IGPN investigation were still not known.
* Following the death, in January 1994, of Ibrahim Sy, an 18-
year-old of Senegalese descent, who was shot dead when police
officers opened fire on a stolen car, there were three nights of
rioting in Rouen. The prosecutor in Evreux immediately opened a
judicial inquiry on a charge of assault leading to intentional
death and on 31 January 1994 Ibrahim Sy's family, acting as a
civil party, made a complaint against persons unknown for murder.
Other complaints listed in the report relate to the policing of
protest and the abuse of identity checks. Cited is the police's
response to a demonstration to protest the death of Makomé
M'Bowle. All those arrested claim to have been physically ill-
treated by the police in the streets and at the Grandes-
Carrières, Mont-Cenis and Goutte d'Or police stations. In all the
23 cases that went before the criminal court in Paris, the court
accepted the police's version of events and all the defendants
were given suspended sentences of 2 to 3 months imprisonment. Ten
of the accused have made complaints against the police which are
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