Gendarmes sacked in 2016 investigation into Adama Traore death | the world

The decision, AFP learned from lawyers on both sides, ends a stormy trial centered on conflicting medical expertise.

The three intervening gendarmes were never indicted in the case, but were only placed under the status of accessory witness in November 2018, and this was expected as the Paris prosecutor’s office requested their dismissal in July.

Mee Yasin Bousrou, who has defended the family of the 24-year-old black man and has long condemned the trial’s conduct, indicated on Instagram that he would appeal the decision.

“This dismissal order, which is full of contradictions, inconsistencies and serious violations of law, insults the institution of the judiciary,” he said.

According to the lawyer, the Paris Court of Appeal “can apply the law in this case by referring the gendarmes to a trial court, where the conflicting debate can say whether the cause of Adama Traore’s death. Proportionate and necessary or not.”

According to him, “uncertainties are presented to justify dismissal of the case, but we are not in a position of certainty, rather we are on sufficient allegations to warrant conflicting discussion before a court”.

In a press release sent to AFP, Rodolphe Bosselut, Sandra Chirac-Kollarik and Pascal Rouiller, who are defending the three arrested gendarmes, instead welcomed the decision that the role was legal, “logical and consistent with reality”. and the proportionality of Adama Trare’s questions”.

Despite the Traray family’s appeal, “this decision ends six years of efforts by the media to rewrite the case in which our clients wanted to be portrayed as ‘murderers’,” continued the soldiers’ lawyers, who “welcome this long term”. Awaiting and deserving rehabilitation.”

Adama Drey died in Persson Barracks on July 19, 2016, two hours after he was arrested in his town of Beaumont-sur-Oise (Val-d’Oise) at the end of a chase, on a heatwave day with high temperatures. near 37°C.

He was arrested during an operation targeting his brother Bagui, who was suspected of extortion.

Nahel M., killed by police gunfire on June 27. The announcement of his death sparked several nights of violence in the small town of Beaumont-sur-Oise and neighboring towns, although the intensity was considerably lower.

Since then, the young man’s relatives, led by his elder sister Asa Drare, an activist, have blamed the military for his death and turned his death into a symbol of police violence and racism.

According to them, the soldiers performed a “ventral tackle” which resulted in the victim’s fatal “positional suffocation”. They highlight initial reports that Adama Trere “took the weight of three of our bodies” while handcuffed in the apartment where he was hiding, without witnesses or video evidence.

Arrested, Adama Traore was then taken away in a vehicle, but fell ill in the car before dying in a gendarmerie yard in the neighboring town of Bersan.

The family alleges police did not help the handcuffed teenager until firefighters arrived.

The case was the subject of a bitter battle of medical expertise.

According to a report published by four Belgian experts in January 2021, Adama Traore’s death was caused by “heat stroke”, although he “probably” could not have died without being arrested by gendarmes.

At the end of June, the Defender of Rights (DDD), Claire Hédon, requested “disciplinary action” against three gendarmes and a fourth, the Chief Warrant Officer, citing a series of “failures” regarding the assistance provided to Adama Traore. , is in the Persian garrison.