This Friday, October 7 before the Marne Assize Court, the Advocate General requested two years’ imprisonment for police officer Christophe Mercier tried since Tuesday for “willful violence with a weapon resulting in permanent mutilation”. Accused of having shot Maxime Beux
on the evening of February 13, 2016, the Reims police officer recognized a blow from a telescopic defense baton.
Matthieu Bourrette talks about a “A case that can be summed up in three sentences, a simple but complex case to judge, a case with selective memories” and the Advocate General further emphasizes: “it’s not the police trial, nor is it the trial of the Corsican supporters”.
“Maxime Beux was not dangerous, it was not absolutely necessary to strike him with a stick” – the Advocate General
“There is a real problem of consistency, Maxime Beux gets back on the bus before coming back down. If he was the leader he should not have taken the bus, nothing in the file allows Maxime Beux to be implicated in the facts which occurred in the minutes preceding the arrest… Is Maxime Beux violent from from 10:30 p.m.? There is no reason to say so and there is no collective responsibility…”
And the Advocate General to insist: “You have the right to think what you want of Maxime Beux but you don’t have the right to switch roles, what you have to take into consideration is Maxime Beux’s situation when he takes the shot truncheon: he flees, without a weapon, he receives a blow in the back”
Matthieu Bourrette recalls the opinion of the Court of Cassation when Christophe Mercier’s lawyers challenged the referral to an assize court of the police officer: “The Court of Cassation was clear: there is no evidence to implicate Maxime Beux in the minutes preceding the beating, the leak alone is not enough to justify the use of a weapon”.
It’s a blunder – Me Fabiani, lawyer for Maxime Beux
A little earlier this Friday, Maxime Beux’s lawyers once again recalled their client’s long legal battle. Six years and eight months elapsed between the facts and the trial before the Assize Court. “I let you imagine what this thesis of the post chosen by this gentleman there Christophe Mercier (he points with his finger) could have had on the psyche of my client”, underlines Master Fabiani_. “I would have preferred Christophe Mercier to take another position”._
And Master Fabiani continues: “It’s a blunder, there are blunders, it’s statistics, the problem is how the blunder is managed”.
The defense arguments will follow this Thursday afternoon, then the jurors will retire to deliberate. The verdict is expected at the end of the day.