Former policeman sentenced to eight months suspended prison sentence for violence against journalist Taha Bouhafs

A former police officer was sentenced by the criminal court of Créteil (Val-de-Marne), Friday, July 8, to eight months in prison suspended for violence against the journalist and activist Taha Bouhafs in 2019 on the sidelines of a demonstration.

Neither he nor Taha Bouhafs were present during the judgment. The former officer of the anti-crime brigade (BAC), dismissed from the police in January for threatening with his service weapon and hitting a colleague with whom he had an extra-marital relationship, was released from the charge of denunciation libel for which he was also judged.

“Violent and racist police treatment”

Taha Bouhafs’ lawyer Arié Alimi welcomed the sentencing, saying his client had “suffered what all young people from working-class neighborhoods experience”to know “violent and racist police treatment”.

The facts of which the ex-policeman was accused took place on June 11, 2019, when Taha Bouhafs was arrested while filming a strike by undocumented workers in front of a Chronopost warehouse in Alfortville (Val-de-Marne) for online media Over there if I’m there.

The journalist and activist was first pushed back by the BAC agent, dressed in civilian clothes, before the two men shouted at each other, Taha Bouhafs accusing the policeman of behaving “like a scum”. He was granted 10 days of total incapacity for work (ITT) after this incident, maintained that the ex-policeman had dislocated his shoulder during the handcuffing, then had continued to beat him in the police vehicle taking him to the police station. Initially prosecuted by the former BAC agent for “contempt” and “rebellion”, Taha Bouhafs was released in May 2021.