Former drug boss François Thierry was acquitted this Friday following a trial in Lyon (Rhône) relating to the placement in police custody in 2012 of a drug trafficker, recruited as an informer. The measure was “procedurally irregular” but there was “no fraudulent intention” because it was “taken in agreement with the Paris prosecutor’s office”, declared the president of the Rhône criminal court, Éric Chalbos, who went against the requisitions of the attorney general who had requested four years of suspended prison sentence against the commissioner.
In his indictment, Advocate General Vincent Auger denounced a “police and legal catastrophe” fueled by the “megalomania” of François Thierry, against whom he also requested a definitive ban on holding public office, with immediate effect.
A delivery of six tonnes of cannabis under surveillance
However, “everything started well for François Thierry”, “a great cop” with an “unblemished” career until his return to the head of the Central Office for the Repression of Illicit Drug Trafficking (Ocrtis) in 2010. From there, “he will lose his ethical and especially legal benchmarks,” asserts the representative of the public prosecutor.
The commissioner, aged 56, has been appearing since Monday before the Rhône criminal court for “forgery by a person holding public authority” and destruction of evidence. He was accused of having drawn up a false police custody report to justify the extraction from prison, in April 2012, of his main “informant”, Sophiane Hambli. This maneuver allowed this big trafficker to follow, remotely from a hotel room, the arrival of six tons of cannabis resin on a Spanish beach, a “supervised delivery” by the police intended to dismantle the resale networks In France.
He admits the facts, but denies any offense
During the hearings, François Thierry, who now heads the digital strategy of the national police, admitted the facts, as well as the destruction of the PV and telephones used during the operation. But he denied any wrongdoing. “I did not have for a second, and still do not have it, the feeling of having committed a forgery,” he declared Thursday, ensuring that he had “dressed up” the extraction of Sophiane Hambli “to the request of the Paris public prosecutor’s office”, who wanted a legal framework in the event of an accident or attempted escape.
Contrary to his assertions, several magistrates, implicated during the investigation, denied having been informed of all the ins and outs of the operation. Called as a witness, the former Paris prosecutor François Molins even accused Ocrtis of having delivered “fragmented, compartmentalized, unfair information” to his services for years.
Information “neither fair nor complete”
Advocate General Vincent Augier echoed this conclusion. “To abdicate his responsibility and consecrate his omnipotence”, François Thierry “incriminates” the magistrates, “he lies”: “the information was neither fair, nor complete nor precise”. “Unfortunately in this case, not all the magistrates were up to the task of François Molins,” he nevertheless admitted, deeming it “unbelievable” that an assistant prosecutor had agreed to extend police custody without consideration. -investigation report.
As for the speech according to which “the end justifies the means”, Vincent Augier asked himself: “What is the end in this matter? », recalling that of the six tonnes of cannabis resin landed in Spain, only 1.9 tonnes were subsequently seized by the police.
