During a police check carried out on Tuesday December 31 at the Méan-Penhoët laundromat, in Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique), a 23-year-old man was arrested for carrying a weapon and being illegally present on French territory. This Thursday, January 2, he appeared in court for rebellion, contempt and death threats. However, a miscarriage of justice allowed him to escape incarceration.
A control that slips
The defendant, present in the box of the Saint-Nazaire court, claims to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. As Ouest-France reports, two days earlier, at the end of the morning, he was in the laundromat with other people when a joint operation by the municipal and national police took place.
The officers quickly focused on this individual for two reasons: he was carrying a knife and was in an irregular situation. These two offenses led to his arrest. However, the intervention took a more tense turn when the handcuffs were applied, provoking the anger of the defendant who then insulted and threatened to kill the police officers. “They ganged up on me,” he declared on the stand.
Facts recognized in police custody
Sylvie David, the lawyer for the national police officer, reacted to this defense. “As is often the case, we want you to believe that it was the police who behaved badly. But the facts are clear and were admitted by the person concerned in police custody, with the exception of the violence,” she said. The public prosecutor, Marguerite Gamber, reclassified this violence as rebellion, and demanded eight months in prison with continued detention.
An error in favor of the defendant
The defense lawyer, Maître Maud Lesève, for her part questioned the version of the facts. “We only have the words of the defendant and the victims, who are also those who write the procedure. They are judges and parties in this matter,” she lamented, while regretting the absence of activation of pedestrian cameras during the intervention.
Against all expectations, the court followed the defense's argument and sentenced the man to eight months in prison. However, it turned out that the defendant had already been sentenced to a simple suspended sentence, making him ineligible for this sanction. The prosecution could appeal this decision in the coming days.
