Belfort: one of the high school students suspected of having participated in the lynching of a police commander released under judicial supervision

He will have spent ten days behind bars. An almost adult teenager, aged 17 years and eleven months, implicated in the ultraviolent lynching of a police commander, in Belfort, on the sidelines of the high school mobilization, on October 2, was released and placed under judicial supervision this Wednesday, we learned from the general public prosecutor's office of the Besançon Court of Appeal. The teenager also accuses the police officer of trying to drown him.

On the day of the incident, around 200 young people gathered in front of the Gustave Courbet high school in the early morning. Incidents quickly broke out: projectile throwing and mortar fire against the police, trash fires and damage. The head of territorial intelligence of the department, in civilian clothes, had spotted the young man whom he suspected of participating in the violence. He followed him to the banks of the La Savoureuse River, where the teenager isolated himself for a moment. He then tried to challenge him, but the young man rebelled. The fight ended in the bed of the river. The teenager had been placed on his stomach for several seconds, his face visibly submerged. The policeman had only managed to handcuff one of his wrists before bringing him back to the bank.

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Two kicks to the head

Both then returned to the plain where there were many young people. The tension was extreme. The police officer was booed, insulted and then physically attacked. In a ten-second video widely relayed on social networks, we see a man dressed all in black dragging the police officer to the ground from behind. He immediately punches him several times in the face. Other overexcited individuals join in the aggression. Inert on his back, the victim receives a barrage of kicks to the head. She briefly loses consciousness.

In the crowd, the high school student fled with a handcuff hanging from his wrist before being quickly identified and then arrested. He admitted in police custody to having kicked the police officer twice in the head, “because of adrenaline”. In his bag, investigators discovered a balaclava, a ski mask, gloves, three aerosol cans, two lighters, a scarf and a jar containing a strange liquid. Indicted at the end of his hearings, in particular for aggravated violence, in a meeting and by someone hiding his face, against a police officer, he was placed in pre-trial detention. His lawyer, Me Arié Alimi, immediately appealed this decision.

Appeal which was examined this Wednesday by the investigating chamber of the Besançon Court of Appeal. The public prosecutor's office requested confirmation of the pre-trial detention order, which was ultimately overturned. Judicial control of high school students is subject to several conditions: the ban on leaving the national territory, leaving their home between 7:30 p.m. and 7 a.m., appearing before any school except the one in which they are enrolled and participating in any demonstration of any nature whatsoever. He also does not have the right to communicate on social networks and to contact the four other minors indicted in the same case, who have also been placed under judicial supervision. “The general public prosecutor’s office does not intend to appeal against this decision,” indicates the public prosecutor’s office in a press release.