Paris: An initial French police investigation has found insufficient evidence to support allegations that a 22-year-old black man was tortured with a police truncheon, a police source said yesterday.
The outcome of the internal police inquiry emerged after violence flared in northern suburbs of Paris and elsewhere in France following the incident involving the man identified only as Theo.
The youth required surgery for severe injuries after he was allegedly assaulted with a truncheon and also suffered head trauma in a case that has revived contentious issue of policing in France’s deprived suburbs.
Police’s own investigation into last Thursday’s incident in the suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois has concluded the injuries were not inflicted intentionally.
A video of the scene shows a policeman “applying a truncheon blow horizontally with a truncheon” and Theo’s trousers “slipped down on their own”, a police source said.
Investigators said they had taken into account “questioning of victim and (police officers), eyewitness accounts and CCTV recordings” and had concluded “there are insufficient elements to show this was torture”. However, an investigating magistrate has charged one of the police officers with abuse and is still examining the case.
