The commissioner accused of ordering the police charge which injured 73-year-old demonstrator Geneviève Legay was sentenced to six months in prison.
Commissioner Rabah Souchi, accused of having ordered the police to charge during a demonstration, seriously injuring Attac activist Geneviève Legay, was sentenced to six months in prison. Friday March 8, the court followed the commissioner’s requisitions, taken at the end of the trial of January 11 and 12 at the Lyon criminal court, for “complicity in violence by a person holding public authority”. The prosecutor, Alain Grellet, argued that the order to charge yellow vest demonstrators had been given “neither necessary, nor proportional, nor in accordance with the regulations”.
“I am very happy with what is happening today, I have always wanted justice to be done […] I wanted to do this trial so that it would be useful to all the victims of police violence,” said declared Geneviève Legay after the court’s decision.
The septuagenarian was participating in a banned yellow vest demonstration in March 2019 when she was knocked down by the police charge and seriously injured. She had suffered, among other things, several fractures and head trauma. The commissioner defended himself by declaring that he had adopted “the most effective tactic that day” because the demonstrators were on the tram tracks and refused to move. The trial, however, demonstrated that the charge had been launched in a very short time after the usual summons, not leaving enough time for the demonstrators to disperse, according to the prosecution.
At the time of the events, images of the 73-year-old woman, lifeless on the ground, caused a stir. And all the more so since the authorities were suspected of having sought to cover up the affair. The Nice prosecutor had in fact denied any contact between the demonstrator and the police, a thesis taken up by Emmanuel Macron.
