Marseille Police Shooting: Key Evidence Vanishes in Controversial Case, Family Alleges Cover-Up

The Souheil El Khalfaoui case is far from over. Contrary to all expectations, several key pieces of the file such as a surveillance camera video from a nearby Caisse d’Épargne bank agency, the recorded filmed interview of the police officer involved, or the bullet that killed Souheil, have been "lost," announced the judge investigating the young man’s death. "After several months of searching," "nine seals [...] remain untraceable," can be read in a letter dated June 4 addressed to the family’s lawyer, revealed by Mediapart. After their removal from the storage service in early 2022, "they have indeed never been returned to the registry of seals," the letter specifies.

Dissatisfied, the family filed a complaint for misappropriation of seals. In a statement, their lawyers denounce "practices worthy of corruption systems, aimed at stifling the truth about a police crime." In this complaint filed in June, they accuse the Marseille Prosecutor of the Republic at the time, Dominique Laurens, of having "deliberately misappropriated the nine seals." For Arié Alimi, the family’s lawyer, some prosecutors, particularly in Marseille, have a very subjective idea of the law with the aim of protecting police officers.

And he concludes: "This complaint will, I hope, clean up the Augean stables." Following the receipt of the complaint, the Marseille prosecutor’s office opened an investigation. It refuted any "intention to conceal." According to the prosecutor’s office, the loss of the seals should not "prejudice the investigation," as each seal has been the subject of "a report."