Adama Traoré case: judges to hear two key witnesses

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The case of Adama Traoré, who died four years ago in a gendarmerie after his arrest, experienced an unexpected twist on Friday, June 5. Two key witnesses will finally be heard by the courts.

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The investigating judges investigating the death of Adama Traoré in 2016 during an arrest wish to hear two witnesses in July that they have never been heard before. This decision was notified by the judges Wednesday, the day after the disclosure of a medical report produced at the request of the family and calling into question the technique of arresting the gendarmes who arrested Adama Traoré. It also intervenes after the demonstration which gathered 20,000 people on Tuesday before the Paris court.

These hearings, long demanded by the family of Adama Traoré, can be crucial in the case. Because the whole question is to know if the young man's death was due to his physical condition or if he was asphyxiated under the weight of the three gendarmes.

On July 19, 2016, Adama Traoré died in the barracks of the Persian gendarmes, almost two hours after his arrest in his city of Beaumont-sur-Oise (Val-d'Oise) and at the end of a chase, after having escaped a first arrest.

During an operation which targeted his brother Bagui, suspected of extortion, Adama Traoré fled and took refuge in a man. He claims to have found him lying on the ground without being able to speak and breathing heavily. This "intense stress" is one of the arguments used by medical experts to conclude that his death is not the responsibility of the gendarmes. The family, for their part, consider this testimony to be false and that the man lied about his links with Adama Traoré. The second witness is a woman who claimed to have witnessed this first attempt at arrest and contradicts the version told by the gendarmes.

So far, these two key figures in the investigation have only been heard by the General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie, but they have not been heard by the courts. Maître Bouzrou, the Traoré family's lawyer, is delighted with this decision by the magistrates and simply asks that the IGGN be dismissed from the case.

( With AFP)

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