The police officer responsible for the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old teenager on Tuesday near Paris was charged Thursday with intentional homicide and remanded in custody, the prosecution said.
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“The police officer referred today as part of an opening of judicial information for intentional homicide was charged with this count and placed in pre-trial detention”, according to a press release from the prosecution.
“Tonight my client went to prison for having applied a shot that he thought was necessary, with the weapon given to him by the State to ensure his safety and that of the citizens”, indicated the policeman’s lawyer, Me Laurent-Franck Liénard, to AFP.
“This judicial decision, we will challenge it and fight it, by all legal means. We will demonstrate that he acted in accordance with the law, once the political pressure and the anger of the street have subsided and we can be listened to,” he added.
The young Nahel died on Tuesday after being shot in the chest during a traffic check in Nanterre, where he lived. According to a video authenticated by AFP, one of the two police officers held Nahel at gunpoint, then fired at point-blank range.
“The prosecution considers that the legal conditions for the use of the weapon (by the police officer) are not met”, had estimated in front of the press in the morning the prosecutor of Nanterre, Pascal Prache.
One of the family’s lawyers, Me Yassine Bouzrou, indicated for his part that he had filed a complaint on Thursday for murder, complicity in murder and forgery in aggravated public writing as well as a request for expatriation.