A Tunisian court on Thursday sentenced 12 policemen to two years in prison for manslaughter over the death of a young football fan who drowned after a match in March 2018.
Ghazi Merabet, the lawyer for the victim's family, told AFP that the court had decided not to hear the case against two other police officers who were tried in the case, adding that the family of the victim, Omar al-Obeidi, 19, would appeal the ruling.
He denounced the trial, which he considered a "judicial farce".
Meanwhile, a member of Al-Obaidi's defense committee, lawyer Toumi Ben Farhat, said that the committee will appeal the verdict after the court refused to charge the security forces with "not helping a person in danger."
Fourteen police officers, all of whom were not arrested during the trial, were accused of chasing a group of Club Africain fans down a small valley near the Rades stadium in the southern suburb of Tunis after a quarrel with other fans.
Mrabet confirmed that eyewitnesses reported that the fan Omar Al-Obeidi told the police that he could not swim before he jumped with other fans in the valley to escape from them.
According to the lawyer, the police were satisfied with the response, "You have to learn to swim," a phrase that, since Omar's death, has turned into a hashtag on social networks and a slogan in football stadiums to criticize police abuses.
The body of the young man was recovered the next day, 3 kilometers from the Rades stadium, and his brother accused the police of pushing him into the water.
According to eyewitnesses, the young man was beaten by the police and then pushed into the valley.
According to 16 Tunisian and international NGOs, including Amnesty International, "The forensic report stated that there were two large bruises on Omar's body, one on his left leg, and the other on his rib cage. Apparently, the two bruises were caused by the club beating."
The organizations called on the Tunisian authorities to carry out “deep” reforms in the security services, denouncing the massive human rights violations committed by the police that went unpunished.
The incident took place on March 31, after a match between Club Africain and Olympique Medenine (1-1), and Tunisian stadiums and their surroundings witness frequent violent incidents.
According to the Tunisian League for Human Rights, which condemned "police impunity", 14 young people were killed in recent years during clashes with the police.
Since President Kais Saied assumed full executive and legislative authority in July 2021, non-governmental organizations and opposition parties have accused the security services of using methods reminiscent of what they describe as the "police state" under the rule of the late President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.