The Defender of Rights pointed out a series of breaches in the Theo case -

GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP

The Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, on Tuesday called for “disciplinary proceedings” against the four police officers who arrested Théo Luhaka, seriously injured during a check in Aulnay-sous-Bois in 2017. In a public decision addressed at the Ministry of the Interior, Claire Hédon notes the “breaches” of the four officials in police ethics and asks for disciplinary sanctions, “independently” of the trial at the assizes desired by the Bobigny prosecutor's office.

It also recommends disciplinary sanctions against the former commissioner of Aulnay and an administrative inspection, facing "the accumulation of breaches" in this case.

During the arrest, "several gestures were disproportionate", estimates the Defender of rights, in particular the "pointed blow" of telescopic baton which seriously injured Theo in the anal area, causing incontinence which handicaps him for life, according to an expert of 2019. Claire Hédon made this decision after hearing the young man, the four police officers and having access to judicial information.

"Nothing could justify the blows carried after the handcuffing"

The document also underlines that "nothing could justify the blows carried after the handcuffing and the control" of Theo, and details the "punches", "knee" and the use of "tear gas" demonstrated by the video surveillance of the city, before the young man was taken out of the camera for "two minutes and 20 seconds".

The three agents of the Field Security Brigade (BST) who carried out these blows, and the fourth who “witnessed violence without intervening to prevent it”, committed “breaches” of the internal security code.

As such, the Defender of Rights, whose mission is to control the action of the police, recommends "the initiation of disciplinary proceedings" against them.

Our file on police violence

In her decision, she also points to the responsibility of the former divisional commissioner of Aulnay-sous-Bois, who "did not use all the means at his disposal in order to avoid exchanges between the four officials put in charge. cause ”, during the hours which followed Theo's arrest in the city of 3,000.

She is also asking for "disciplinary proceedings" against her.

Claire Hédon finally calls for an administrative "inspection" concerning the practices of the BST and the entire northeastern district of Seine-Saint-Denis, which was also headed by this commissioner.

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