Justice has dismissed the two police officers involved in the investigation into Jean-François Martin, a student stunned by an LBD shot in Rennes in 2016, the author could not be "identified with certainty ", we learned on Friday from the Rennes prosecution.
LBD's shot could not have been identified "with certainty"
The geography student, then 20 years old, was injured during a demonstration on April 28, 2016 by a shot from LBD 40 (defense ball launcher) and had lost the use of his left eye, which had had to be enucleated. Two police officers, Nicolas P. and Anthony P., had used their weapon at the time of the events and placed under the status of assisted witness for "intentional violence resulting in infirmity or permanent mutilation by person depositing public authority" .
On May 29, the investigating judge concluded that there was no case, following the requisitions of the prosecution, said the prosecutor of the Republic of Rennes, Philippe Astruc, stating that the victim had appealed against this decision. According to the order consulted by AFP, the investigations entrusted to the IGPN did not allow "to identify with certainty the author of the shooting of LBD (...), it can only be pronounced a no -location".
"The use of force was rightly made in the light of the violence and major assaults which were committed by the demonstrators against the police in a time contemporary with the facts", specifies the prosecutor .
"The investigating judge lent his hand to the law of silence"
"I expected it, there is a form of weariness in the face of very slow justice", reacted Jean-François Martin. "We are deploying gigantic means to find a masked protester in the middle of 5,000 people but we are not able to find the policeman with a weapon," he said.
For his lawyer Arié Alimi, "it is a fairly classic defense on the part of a police officer to prevent identifying the perpetrator of the offense, in particular in the maintenance of order". "What is dramatic is that it was up to the police either to denounce themselves or to testify against each other, but obviously there is an omerta and it is regrettable that the investigating judge has lent the hand to the law of silence, "he added.
In January, human rights defender Jacques Toubon called for disciplinary action against the two police officers "for disproportionate use of force". He noted that the police had not "given a precise account of the circumstances in which they used their weapon".