Investigation Launched into Alleged Racist Police Violence in Paris

The events took place on the night of April 8 to 9. After midnight, while he was driving his car with two of his cousins and another friend, after having eaten in a restaurant in Servon (Seine-et-Marne), he crosses the path of the police officers assigned to the 8th arrondissement of Paris. He was in a traffic jam at the time. From the sidewalk, two men tell them to "shut your mouth, dirty Arabs". "At first, I thought it was a joke," says the 25-year-old man. It is only after answering them that he realizes that they are plainclothes BAC police officers. Hamza tries to flee, but the police catch up with him at the corner of rue de la Boétie and avenue Franklin-D.-Roosevelt. A patrol then arrives as reinforcement. It takes the passengers of the car.

Hamza and the passengers are suspected of holding fake Italian identity papers. Except that the documents are real. This is the beginning of their hell. "There were spits, insults. They said our mothers had whored to be able to raise us, to have papers," the young man recounts. There are also blows, elbow blows, "slaps on the head". The young boxer says he lived through hell in this car, and that if he had been weak, he would have committed suicide. "They were trying to push me to the limit so that I would rebel. They insulted me as if it had become personal." The police take him to the 8th arrondissement police station. Hamza is placed in custody for refusing to comply and carrying a prohibited weapon. He would have a switchblade with a boar design that night, according to the police.

After 48 hours in custody, Hamza is released. He is then heard by another judicial police officer (OPJ) who has viewed the images from the cameras that filmed the arrest. This one believes the young man on the version of the facts he delivered. He assured that the BAC elements used violence against him. When the OPJ asks him if he wishes to file a complaint, Hamza refuses. His companions in misfortune who were also released made the same decision. The young man leaves the police station with a swollen jaw and bruises on his chest. "I had trouble eating for several days," he recounts. Despite the young man’s refusal, the OPJ makes a report.

More than six months later, the IGPN (General Inspectorate of the National Police), the police’s police, summons Hamza. On Monday, it collects his testimony and his complaint. For its part, the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation, for forgery in public writing and violence committed by internal security forces (FSI). "The investigation is open, in particular, for forgery in public writing committed by a person holding public authority, a crime punishable by fifteen years’ imprisonment, so we are facing facts whose seriousness is certain," judges Ilyacine Ma