French prosecutors on Tuesday said they wanted a police officer to stand trial for the 2023 fatal shooting of teenager Nahel Merzouk at a traffic stop in the working-class suburbs north of Paris, that sparked a week of violent protests nationwide.
The police officer, identified only as Florian M., shot 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk at close range during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on 27 June, 2023.
The incident was captured on mobile phone footage that went viral.
The officer has been charged with voluntary homicide but was released from custody in November 2023 after five months in detention.
On Monday, the prosecutor's office in Nanterre said it had concluded an investigation into the shooting and recommended that the officer be tried, and that charges against a colleague for complicity in murder be dropped.
The investigating judge, however, has to decide whether to open such a trial, and the policeman's lawyer can appeal.
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Contradictory evidence
In the police officer's original version of events, he had fired at Nahel after the teen failed to comply with an order to stop his car. Nahel allegedly drove at the officer, who shot in self defence.
But mobile phone footage showed two police officers standing by the side of a stationary car, with one pointing a weapon at its driver.
The images, and apparent disconnect with the official version, sparked several nights of violence and protests against police brutality – both in the victim's home town of Nanterre and other cities.
The two officers claimed their lives were in danger because they were trapped between the car and a wall. But the investigation showed the teenager's car had been blocked in traffic.
"Even if he had tried to restart the car, he does not appear to have represented an immediate threat" to the policemen, the final report stated.
"It seems that the reason for the shot being fired was the extreme tension of the situation. But as an experienced police officer, (the policeman) should have kept his cool," the report concluded.
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'Unbelievable' trial
Lawyer Frank Berton, representing the victim's mother, said his client welcomed the news.
Mounia Merzouk has been hoping for a trial to establish that her son's murder was intentional, he said, adding the act was "voluntary and the intention to kill clear".
In May, the probe included the reenactment of the crime scene, with the police officer, the colleague who was on duty with him that day, and several witnesses present.
The analysis dismissed accounts by witnesses and fellow passengers that the police officers had hit the teenager.
Linda Kebbab, of police union Un1te, said she was "astounded" by the prosecutors' announcement.
She asked how a police officer could possibly end up in court when their only aim had been to "make streets safer".
Alliance, France's largest police union, denounced "an unacceptable requisition and disastrous signal for the police force!", and called for all members, whatever their grade or union, to gather Wednesday in protest.
(with AFP)
