Former drug boss François Thierry, accused of having carried out fictitious police custody in 2012, was acquitted on Friday in Lyon, following a trial which often placed police officers and magistrates back to back.
The measure was “procedurally irregular” but there was “no fraudulent intention” because it was carried out “under control” and “in agreement with the Paris prosecutor’s office”, declared the president of the Rhône criminal court Eric Chalbos.
The court went against the attorney general who had requested a four-year suspended prison sentence and a ban on practicing, denouncing a “police and legal disaster”, fueled by the “megalomania” of François Thierry.
In her reasons, she scratches the Paris prosecutor’s office which has always assured that it did not have complete and fair information in this matter.
When the judgment was announced, the commissioner, aged 56, shed a few tears, before hugging colleagues, but did not wish to make any statements.
He is “happy because his good faith has been recognized”, commented his lawyer Me Francis Szpiner as he left the courtroom. “This decision partly puts an end to the ordeal that François Thierry has suffered for several years,” he continued. “It’s moving that justice triumphs.”
“Lied to no one”
The former head of the Central Office for the Suppression of Illicit Drug Trafficking (Ocrtis) was accused of having drawn up a false police custody report to justify the extraction from prison, in April 2012, of his principal. 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 delivery monitored by the police intended to dismantle the resale networks in France .
Only 1.9 tonnes were subsequently seized and, at the start of the procedure, François Thierry was indicted for complicity in drug trafficking, charges ultimately dropped, the prosecution having found no proof of embezzlement.
During the hearings, the commissioner, who now manages the digital strategy of the national police, admitted the facts, as well as the destruction of the minutes and telephones used during the operation.
But he denied any wrongdoing. “I remain convinced that I have not wronged anyone, lied to anyone, written any falsehood,” he declared before the start of the deliberations.
The day before, he had explained that he had “covered up” the extraction of Sophiane Hambli “at the request of the Paris prosecutor’s office”, which wanted a legal framework in the event of an accident or attempted escape.
-“All power” –
Without denying having intervened, several magistrates assured that they had not known all the ins and outs of the operation. Called as a witness, the former Paris prosecutor François Molins accused Ocrtis of having delivered “fragmented, compartmentalized, unfair information” to his services for years.
Advocate General Vincent Augier took up this conclusion in the requisitions. “To abdicate his responsibility and consecrate his omnipotence, François Thierry blames the magistrates”, “he “lies”.
“Unfortunately in this case, not all the magistrates were up to the task,” he admitted, however, deeming it “unbelievable” that a deputy prosecutor had agreed to extend police custody without a report. investigation.
This one, Véronique Degermann, had initially been indicted for “complicity in forgery” before benefiting from a dismissal of the case.
In his pleading, Mr. Szpiner presented his client as a “crusader” in the fight against drugs who was the victim of “relentlessness” and a “showdown between justice and the police”.
This affair is a “trick” and “the prosecution is stuck in lies”. There was no “forgery” but an “irregularity” and above all “no harm” since Sophiane Hambli was already deprived of his liberty, he argued.
François Thierry is not out of the woods yet.
He will have to answer for “complicity in drug trafficking” in a related case, which concerns the seizure, in 2015 in the heart of Paris, of seven tonnes of cannabis resin, imported by Sophiane Hambli as part of a controlled delivery operated by the Ocrtis. The date of this trial, which will take place in Bordeaux, has not been set.
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