The Algerian citizen residing in Alès was tried on Wednesday November 6 before the criminal court of Montpellier after assaulting a police officer on arrival at the deportation camp in Sète on November 1. He was acquitted on the grounds of insulting behaviour.
This Algerian national, who had to leave the country, was picked up by the police in Alès. As a bicycle courier, he had taken the right of way of a Bac crew, who then checked his identity. Due to his situation, the 30-year-old man is taken to the Centre for Administrative Removals (CRA) in Sète on November 1, where things do not go according to plan from the moment he arrives. On Wednesday November 6, the father of two very young children (19 months and 16 days old) stood trial in the Montpellier criminal court for violence and insulting a police officer and for damaging property in the room where he had been placed.
‘I am a Muslim, you will go to hell’
At the hearing, the presiding judge, Julie Marot, revisits the proceedings in which the man is described as ‘agitated, virulent, nervous’ when he was admitted to the CRA. ‘I was agitated. I was working and they arrested me,’ he justifies himself. Then, while the officers were away, he tore down the wallpaper in the small room where he was being held and insulted one of the police officers. According to him, the man allegedly said: ‘I’m a Muslim and I’m going to bury you, you son of a bitch…’. In the dock, however, the accused denied making these remarks. ‘I wanted to say to him: ‘I am a Muslim, you will go to hell’, because he had been unkind to me. But I couldn’t finish my sentence.’
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In case of doubt, the court acquitted the defendant for the offence and sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment with a warrant for the violence and damage to property. Compensation for the police officer, who appeared as a joint plaintiff, was the subject of a referral to Civil Court. Midi-Libre