In Lyon, four years of suspended prison sentence required against the former drug chief for false custody

Four years of suspended prison time were requested on Friday against the former drug boss, François Thierry, tried in Lyon for having organized false custody of a drug trafficker, recruited as an informant.

“A police and legal disaster”

In his indictment, Advocate General Vincent Auger denounced a “police and legal disaster“powered by”megalomania” et “an ethical drift” of François Thierry, against whom he also requested a definitive ban on holding public office, with immediate effect.

Yet, “everything started well for François Thierry“, “a great cop“with a career”without stain“until his return to the head of the Central Office for the Suppression 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 has been appearing since Monday before the Rhône criminal court for “forgery by a person holding public authority” and destruction of evidence. He is accused of having drawn up a false police custody report to justify the extraction from prison, in April 2012, of his main “indic”, Sophiane Hambli.

“I did not have for a second, and still do not have, the feeling of having committed a forgery”

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 “monitored delivery” by the police intended to dismantle resale networks in France.

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, the feeling of having committed a forgery“, he declared Thursday, ensuring that he had “dressed” l’extraction de Sophiane Hambli “at the request of the Paris 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 for years a “fragmentary, compartmentalized, unfair information” to his services.

The judgment is expected Friday afternoon.