Death of a relative of Adama Traoré: the Versailles prosecutor's office opens a judicial investigation

The Versailles prosecutor's office announced on Friday the opening of a judicial investigation for "research into the causes of death" after the controversial drowning in the Seine of a relative of Adama Traoré, pursued by the police on Sunday evening in Marly-le -Roi, in the Yvelines.

The man had been caught loading a motorbike into a van before fleeing in the sight of the police.

His family has since demanded that light be shed on the circumstances of the tragedy and denounces possible police violence.

The trail of drowning fought by the Traoré family 

According to the pre-autopsy report, "all the signs indicate a drowning", indicated the prosecutor of Versailles Maryvonne Caillibotte, specifying that the forensic expert was awaiting two expertises, in particular toxicological, in order to confirm with certainty this hypothesis.

This track is however fought by the Traoré family.

"The autopsy does not confirm that he died by drowning," Assa Traore, cousin of the victim and figurehead of the Adama committee, founded after the death of his brother in 2016, told AFP on Wednesday. after his arrest by the gendarmes in the Val-d'Oise.

The lawyer of the Traoré family, Me Yassine Bouzrou, affirmed that the body of the victim shows traces of "lesions on the level of the head which correspond to a shock against a hard plane".

He also attacked the prosecutor of Versailles, accused of having "voluntarily omitted to indicate" this information.

Assa Traoré, who says he saw the body of his cousin with his family at the Garches morgue, in Hauts-de-Seine on Wednesday, for his part assured that he had "the skull completely deformed, as if he had been put 15 baton blows in the head ".