Whistleblower Cop Vindicated: Court Slams Police Racism Cover-Up

The case concerns Chief Inspector Amar Benmohamed. In 2020, he had publicly revealed that "more than 1,000 defendants" had been victims of insults, racist remarks or mistreatment by some of his colleagues between 2017 and 2019, while they were awaiting presentation to the courts. After reporting these facts internally, he had been subject to several disciplinary sanctions.

The Paris Administrative Court of Appeal confirmed last Wednesday the cancellation of a warning and a reprimand, ruling that these sanctions were not "justified by objective elements unrelated to the status of whistleblower" of the police officer. The state was ordered to pay him 1,500 euros in legal costs. This is not the first time that the administrative courts have overturned a sanction against him.

For his lawyer, Me Arié Alimi, this decision is a new victory. He highlighted a striking fact from the hearing: for the first time, "the public rapporteur stated that Amar Benmohamed was being morally harassed by his superiors".

This series of successes on the administrative level, however, contrasts with the outcome of the criminal proceedings. The initial investigation into the allegations of mistreatment and racism denounced by the police officer had been dismissed in January 2022. Moreover, according to Me Alimi, the investigating judge in charge of the criminal case for moral harassment "refuses to truly investigate", an attitude that he criticizes as a way of protecting the institution.