{"id":27026,"date":"2024-01-20T05:41:08","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T10:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=27026"},"modified":"2024-01-20T05:41:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T10:41:08","slug":"theo-luhaka-french-police-officers-given-suspended-sentences-for-brutal-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/01\/20\/theo-luhaka-french-police-officers-given-suspended-sentences-for-brutal-assault\/","title":{"rendered":"Th\u00e9o Luhaka: French police officers given suspended sentences for brutal assault"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Three French police officers have been given suspended jail sentences for assaulting a black man with a baton in a north-west Paris suburb.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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One officer received a 12-month suspended sentence and the other two received three-month sentences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Th\u00e9o Luhaka was left disabled with irreversible anal injuries from a police baton during a stop-and-search in Aulnay-sous-Bois in February 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Luhaka, then 22, also said he was beaten, racially abused and spat at.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The case sparked unrest and protests on housing estates in Paris.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Officer Marc-Antoine Castelain, 34, was found guilty of a truncheon blow that seriously injured Mr Luhaka, and was handed a 12-month suspended sentence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Jeremie Dulin, 42, and Tony Hochart, 31, were handed three-month suspended sentences for intentional violence, following a trial which started on 9 January.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In French law, a suspended sentence means the offender avoids prison for a specified time providing they do not commit another criminal offence and fulfil other obligations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I felt like I was raped,” Mr Luhaka, now aged 29, told the Assizes court in Bobigny on Monday.<\/p>\n

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The following account contains details which readers may find distressing.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Video footage of the assault was shared widely on social media, caused an uproar and\u00a0prompted then-President Francois Hollande to visit Mr Luhaka in hospital<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Luhaka was a young sports mentor with no criminal record and had hopes of starting a professional football career in Belgium.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On the day he was attacked, he said he left his house and encountered a police identity check targeting drug dealers by chance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The police operation turned violent and he was set upon by four officers, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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CCTV footage showed Mr Luhaka forced to the ground and beaten for eight minutes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Luhaka said one officer proceeded to pull his trousers down and assault him with a truncheon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Bleeding, he was then taken by the officers to the police station by car where he was also racially abused.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Luhaka was treated for serious injuries to his anus, which were initially investigated as rape.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Prosecutors had asked for a three-year suspended jail term for Castelain, who yielded the baton and has been accused of voluntary violence that led to a “permanent disability”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They had requested suspended sentences of six and three months for his two colleagues Dulin and Hochart for taking part in the aggravated voluntary violent assault.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The case against a fourth officer was dropped.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three French police officers have been given suspended jail sentences for assaulting a black man with a baton in a north-west Paris suburb. One officer received a 12-month suspended sentence and the other two received […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[10064,10063,10062,2913,2740,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-27026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world","9":"tag-bobigny","10":"tag-bobigny-assizes-court","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-paris","14":"tag-police-brutality","15":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27026"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27029,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27026\/revisions\/27029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}