“The qualification used in this file may be political, but it is not relevant”. Laurent-Franck Liénard, lawyer for the policeman who killed Sunday on the Pont-Neuf in Paris two men who would have, in the car, restarted hastily towards a patrol, announced Thursday April 28 that he found “irrelevant” the indictment of his client for “intentional homicide”. The 24-year-old faces 30 years in prison.
“A policeman who uses his administrative weapon to arrest an offender does not want to kill him: he wants to stop a dangerous action”insisted the lawyer, adding: “The homicidal intention is not in the state of mind of the policeman when he opens fire”.
According to him, in this case, the qualification adopted should be “willful violence resulting in death without intention to give it”, a criminal qualification punishable by fifteen years of imprisonment, retained for the front passenger of the vehicle by the judges of instruction.
Asked whether his client had invoked self-defense to explain his shooting, the lawyer refused to answer in the name of the secrecy of the instruction. “It’s the merits of the case, it’s the instruction that will determine it”he pointed out.
>> Fatal shootings on the Pont-Neuf in Paris: five questions on the self-defense invoked by the police
While the right-wing Alliance union has called“inadmissible” this qualification and called for a rally before the Paris Court of Appeal, Me Laurent-Franck Liénard regretted that “everyone is excited. The police unions want to recover this file, I say that we must keep our senses.”
The 24-year-old peacekeeper was indicted on Wednesday evening for “intentional homicide” concerning the driver, “intentional violence by a person holding public authority resulting in death without intention to give it” concerning the front passenger and for “aggravated willful violence by a person holding public authority” against the rear passenger. He was placed under judicial supervision.