FAIR JUSTICE FOR ALL?

 

Freelance journalist Patrice Victor attended the recent trial against prison guards in Valenciennes…

 

Reporting by:  Patrice Victor

 

 

Impunity often prevails when police officers and prison guards resort to unlawful violence. Judicial acceptance of abusive behavior sends a message of approval. Nevertheless something different happened recently in Valenciennes, Northern France. Against a backdrop of violence towards prisoners, a lawyer pressed charges…

 

Police are here to protect us and to uphold the law. It is probably better not to let some people who have committed horrific crimes wander the streets, we should jail them under the supervision of guards.

  Police and prison officers alike have a difficult and sometimes dangerous task which is emotionally demanding. Nevertheless officers in charge of law and order should abide by the law and not abuse their power.

  This is how it is in principle, but in reality is often different. In most countries, including so called democratic countries such as France, the United Kingdom (1), and others, more than often impunity prevails when state agents are involved.

  For instance, in the USA during the Occupy Wall Street protest in 2011 a deputy inspector pepper-sprayed peaceful protesters at random,(2) whilst another punched a protester in the face (3) for no reason. Despite the evidence, they escaped prosecution.

  During the last few weeks, police brutality has been widely documented during street protests in Turkey and more recently in Brazil, but no officer or official was prosecuted.

 In France the examples are plenty. For instance, the court of appeal in Versailles is famous for its leniency when police are involved: this year in less than 3 weeks it dropped the charges in 3 different cases involving death under police custody in the suburbs of Paris. In each case evidence suggests that undue violence may have been used by police officers. Here are the stories.

 

  On February 22 the court dropped the charges against police after the death of Mahmadou Marega on November 30, 2010. That day, this undocumented Mali foreigner started a violent uproar inside a building in Colombes. He tried to escape when the police arrived and the situation became chaotic. In order to subdue him, the police sprayed him with tear gas, shot him with a taser stun gun and beat him. Eventually when restrained the policemen brought him down inside a lift; when it reached the ground floor Mahamadou was dead.

 

  On February 28 the court dropped charges against police after the death of Ali Zari. On June 9, 2009, this 69-year old retired Algerian was in the passenger seat of a car driven by his friend in Argenteuil. Both of them were drunk. The police stopped the car. The arrest was violent. It seems Ali was kept with his face against the ground for about an hour. Later he was sent in a bad condition to the hospital where he died.

 

On March 12 the court dropped the charges against police after the death of Abou Bakari Tandia on January 24, 2005. He was brought to a police station in Courbevoie for an identity check. According to the police once in the station he hit his head against the wall. He fainted and was sent to the hospital where oddly no head injury was noticed by the physicians. He remained in the coma and died 6 weeks later on December 5, 2004. A medical examination states that his death was caused by a lack of oxygen linked to the use of physical restraint. This finding is consistent with an excessive use of force by the police.

 

Order based on violence is dictatorship

  But something different happened recently in France. The story starts back in 2008 in the city of Valenciennes, Northern France. A lawyer, Jean-Philippe Broyart, heard from inmates many cases of violence by a small group of prison officers. Some of those inmates didn't know each other, were not in the same building and didn't go to the prison yard at the same time, nevertheless they described the same acts of beating involving the same guards. A number of complaints had been lodged but they were dropped because of a lack of evidence. So Broyart decided to adopt another strategy despite prisoners being scared stiff of violence by the guards: to wait and get as much evidence as possible before lodging a complaint - which meant more beatings, but a better chance of success. "Violence has been taking place for more than a year. Collecting evidence is difficult; access to the doctor is impeded. It's only a small group of guards who abuse their power; the prisoners tell me that some guards are wonderful people. Their working conditions are terrible. But there are many ways to maintain order; order based on violence is dictatorship".

  So eventually there was enough evidence making it no longer possible to ignore the violence. On March 2009 Broyart filed a dozen complaints for aggravated assault. Eventually 7 guards in Valenciennes were implicated, 4 among them were prosecuted and tried in Valenciennes last month on June 12 and 13 in two different cases. 

  So let's focus on one of those cases. Here the story of the plaintiff, Mr. Benoît Hebdowski, jailed for robbery and rebellion. On the morning of February 2, 2009 he was alone in his cell and according to the guards he started an uproar.

  What happened next according to him, if true, is properly terrifying. A guard came and asked him if he was ready to "cop it". Seven guards who looked like Robocop with their protective gear, helmet and hood, 2 among them equipped with a bludgeon and one with a shield came and stood in front of his cell. The cell door opened, 4 guards entered the cell and 3 guards stayed behind. They beat him severely during endless minutes. It was only the beginning of his ordeal. Next, he was pulled out of his cell in order to be transferred to a punishment cell and he was head-butted along the way. There he was stripped of all his clothes for a full body search - it included spreading the buttocks wide open to see if anything was hidden inside the anus. It was a humiliation he could not tolerate - he became enraged. In retaliation, the guards beat him to the extent they broke one of his teeth and one of them kicked him as an animal when he fell to  the ground.

 Eventually left alone, naked with a bloodied face in the disciplinary cell, according to the head of the guards Mohamed Azzaoui, Hebdowski had provoked an uproar.

  At that point Azzaoui clearly made a mistake. In place of letting the prisoner cool down, he and 2 guards entered the cell again for a further beating. After ordering the other guards out, he sprayed the prisoner with tear gas called Capstun despite a lack of ventilation, and he left him. Later on the same day Hebdowski was examined by a physician who noted lesions and contusions on his body.

 He and Broyart filed a complaint and an investigation followed. The guards argued that the use of force was proportional and fair, but they contradicted one another about the use of tear gas. The magistrates considered there was not enough evidence that excessive violence was used against Hebdowski, so the guards were not tried for the outburst of violence in the regular cell nor during the transfer to the disciplinary cell, but only for unlawful use of the tear gas - it was not used according to the regulation and guards lied about it.