Six years after the death of Zineb Redouane, hit by a grenade in the face, a CRS indicted for “involuntary manslaughter”

On December 2, 2018, Zineb Redouane died on an operating table at the Conception hospital in Marseille. The previous evening, this 80-year-old Algerian woman had received a tear gas grenade in the face, fired by a CRS during a “yellow vest” demonstration, while she was closing the windows of her apartment located on the fourth floor, rue des Feuillants, not far from the Old Port. This demonstration ended in violent clashes very close to his home, in a saturated atmosphere tear gas: 200 grenades had been fired.

Six years after the death of “Mama Zina”, as she was nicknamed by her children, the police officer behind the shooting was indicted on September 12 for “manslaughter”, we learned. The Monde. “It is regrettable to have had to wait so many years to obtain the indictment of the police officer”deplores Yassine Bouzrou, the lawyer for the victim’s children. The accused peacekeeper chose to remain silent during his first appearance before the two judges responsible for the investigation at the Lyon judicial court. Thibault de Montbrial, the police officer’s counsel, did not wish to comment.

This first indictment marks a milestone, at the end of years of procedures. A preliminary investigation was opened on December 4, 2018. It first took eighteen months and a ballistic report to identify the CRS, its position and the exact time of the shooting: the report estimated that the shooter was located “between the two rails on the tramway track (…) his bust oriented towards rue des Feuillants », and identified a shot, at 7:04 p.m., which “appears to be the one who caused M’s bodily harm^me Redouane ».

This evening in 2018, of the 70 agents in the ranks of CRS 50, dispatched from Nice to secure the demonstrations, five were equipped with Cougar grenade launchers. But none had confessed to being the author of the shot, all saying they no longer really remembered the events. It was only in April 2021 – in the report of the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) – that his name was revealed.

To identify him, the investigators had to proceed by elimination: after analyzing the video of a demonstrator posted on YouTube, the radio exchanges between the agents, the administrative hearings, the 3D modeling of the media Disclose – who had reconstructed the scene of the shooting -, and relying on the photos from the ballistics report, the IGPN was able to rule out four of the police officers.

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