Report tells of killings, beatings, racial abuse and excessive force by French law enforcers, writes LARA MARLOWE
HUMAN RIGHTS group Amnesty International yesterday presented allegations of unlawful killings, beatings, racial abuse and excessive force by French law enforcement officers. “We consider that in the present situation in France, the police are above the law,” said David Diaz-Jogeix, deputy director of Amnesty’s Europe and Central Asia programme.
Mr Diaz-Jogeix presented the 44-page report, France: Police above the law?, in the company of victims of police brutality and relatives of a young Frenchman killed during his arrest last year. Most of the victims are Arab or African immigrants.
The authorities follow through on very few complaints against the police, Mr Diaz-Jogeix said. “There’s a worrying phenomenon that people who protest are themselves accused of outrage (insulting a law enforcement officer), rebellion (violently resisting a law enforcement official in the course of his/her duties) and defamation against police officers.” The report suggests such charges are brought against the victims of police violence for revenge or intimidation.
The 15 cases detailed by Amnesty include four deaths in police custody. The most recent was Abdelhakim Ajimi, a 22-year-old Frenchman of Tunisian origin. On May 9th, 2008, Ajimi argued with the manager of his local bank in Grasse, southern France, over a €100 loan. The bank manager called the police.
Ajimi was walking home when he was apprehended by two members of the BAC (Brigade Anti-Criminelle). He struggled, was knocked down and his ankles and wrists hand-cuffed. Numerous witnesses reported that one officer knelt on his back while another held him in a stranglehold.
“He turned blue. He wasn’t moving. He couldn’t breathe,” says Dorsaf Briki, a friend of the Ajimi family. The autopsy said Ajimi “died of slow, mechanical asphyxiation”. Witnesses believe he was already dead when he was thrown, head first, into the back of a police car. The case has prompted three demonstrations in Grasse, and substantial press coverage. Last month, five police officers were charged with failing to assist a person in danger. The two BAC cops were given special witness status, which approaches that of a suspect, because they’re provided with lawyers.
Boubaker Ajimi (51), an immigrant mason and the father of Abdelhakim, stood at the back of yesterday’s press conference. “Hakim had been an apprentice chef for three years, but he couldn’t find a job,” he said. “He was tall, thin, healthy. He played football. He was never in prison; he wasn’t a bad boy. I know who the two cops are who did it. I still see them on patrol. It hurts us.”
In its previous report on police brutality in France, in 2005, Amnesty told how Mohamed Saoud died by asphyxiation in exactly the same manner as Abdelhakim Ajimi, in November 1998. In October 2007, the European Court of Human Rights condemned the French officers who pinned Saoud to the ground, bound his hands and feet, knelt on his back and prevented him from breathing. The court specifically criticised this restraint technique, and regretted that France did not issue instructions to stop its use.
Like many victims of police brutality, Abou Bakari Tandia (38), from Mali, was detained when an identity check revealed he was an illegal immigrant. “He’d been in France for 13 years and survived doing odd jobs,” says Julie Garnier, a lawyer representing Tandia’s family. “There was no fight. Except for his papers, he committed no offence.” The night Tandia was placed in a police cell in the Paris suburb of Courbevoie in December 2004, he was taken to hospital in a coma and died nearly three weeks later. Police claimed he smashed his head against the cell wall. “It’s not plausible; there were no bruises on his head,” says Garnier. Tandia’s medical file went missing for three years – a frequent occurrence in such cases – and a new opinion is expected in May.
Albertine Sow, then six months pregnant with daughter Safi-Jeanne, protested when she saw her 17-year-old cousin Jean-Pierre handcuffed in front of their Paris apartment building in August 2006, because he didn’t have identity papers with him. “Get out of here or I’ll smash your face in,” Sow says a cop shouted at her. A scuffle ensued, and her brother Yenga Fele arrived, shouting at the policeman not to harm a pregnant woman. The Africans say police fired tear gas at them and beat them with truncheons. Sow’s suit against the police was rejected, but in January both she and her brother were convicted of assaulting police officers. They are appealing.
Amnesty calls on France to establish an independent body to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by the police, and to publish statistics. “They provide statistics for offences against the police, but not for offences by the police,” explains Rachel Taylor, an Amnesty researcher who contributed to the report.
Asked to comment, Lieut Gregory Valette of the national police headquarters said: “No policeman is above the law.”