Adama Traoré case: the Court of Cassation confirms the dismissal of the case in favor of the gendarmes | EUROtoday

Justice has dominated. The Court of Cassation confirmed, on Wednesday February 11, the dismissal of the case within the case of the demise of Adama Traoré, a choice which has develop into closing however denounced by his household, who now hopes to acquire the conviction of France earlier than European justice.

After ten years of authorized battle, the kinfolk of this younger black man who died in July 2016 in a gendarmerie in Val-d’Oise see their hopes of relaunching the investigation on this case which has develop into a logo of accusations of violence and racism by the police disappear.

In a 15-page judgment, the best judicial courtroom rejected all of the arguments they raised, refusing to annul the dismissal pronounced in favor of the gendarmes in August 2023 then confirmed in May 2024 on enchantment. The judges adopted the overall prosecutor’s workplace.

This dismissal, which benefited the three gendarmes who handcuffed Adama Traoré in an residence in Beaumont-sur-Oise (Val-d’Oise) on July 19, 2016, on the finish of a chase on a day when it was practically 37°C, is now closing. The 24-year-old younger man, arrested throughout an operation concentrating on his brother Bagui, died two hours later within the neighboring Persan barracks.

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“No serious fault”

The legal chamber of the Court of Cassation judges the judges’ refusal to order new investigations, together with a reconstruction, to be in keeping with the regulation. This has at all times been refused to the Traoré household to make clear the circumstances of the arrest and demise.

In this case, the place the arrest befell with out an outdoor witness and the place the investigation gave rise to quite a few skilled opinions and medical stories, the courtroom of enchantment thought of that the actions of the gendarmes had contributed to the demise of Adama Traoré, however had remained inside the framework of the regulation.

The household accuses the troopers of getting carried out a ventral restraint for a number of minutes, which might have prompted demise, after which of not having come to the help of the younger man who had felt unwell of their car and who had been left handcuffed till the firefighters arrived.

The legal chamber validates the judges’ reasoning on the “assistance” given to Adama Traoré, “adapted to the awareness they had of the danger incurred”. “No serious fault has been established on the part of the gendarmes exposing (Adama Traoré) to a particularly serious risk which they could not ignore,” underlines the judgment.

“We are scandalized, shocked,” reacted as she left the viewers the sufferer’s sister, Assa Traoré, main determine of the “Truth and Justice for Adama” committee.

“The Adama Traoré affair brought the issue of police violence to the highest level (…) The French police are racist, the French judicial system is racist. Today, they protected the gendarmes, but we know the truth,” she accused.

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The household turns to European justice

At his facet, the lawyer for Adama Traoré’s household, Me Yassine Bouzrou, introduced that he would refer the matter to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) “to have France condemned”.

After years of investigation, the courts acknowledged that the younger man’s demise was brought on by “heat stroke” which “probably” wouldn’t have been deadly with out the arrest of the gendarmes. “Yet today, (the Court of Cassation) ratifies impunity” he then denounced in a press launch despatched to AFP. In this case, “a prosecutor gave false information and doctors invented pathologies”, earlier than the case was relocated from Pontoise to Paris, he declared.

The civil events needed to name on “independent experts” to pressure “justice to admit after eight years what everyone knew: Adama Traoré died under the weight of the gendarmes, and not from an alleged heatstroke”, asserts M Bouzrou. “The justice system refused any reconstruction, flouting the most basic rules of an investigation worthy of the name (…) The French justice system did everything to cover up the affair, refusing to assess the proportionality of the force used,” he protests.

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“The facts are tragic and that takes nothing away from the compassion we can have for the civil parties, but for the gendarmes it is a relief,” reacted certainly one of their attorneys, Me Guillaume Tapie, who believes that “the investigation was complete and extremely thorough”.

The choice instantly sparked political reactions. “French justice is once again covering up the gendarmes who commit police violence,” denounced LFI MP Thomas Portes. “The honor (of the gendarmes) is now safe and their reputation restored”, quite the opposite reacted the boss of the RN, Jordan Bardella.

With AFP