Two new complaints filed after serious injuries to protesters in Sainte-Soline
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Two new complaints were filed on Monday concerning demonstrators injured during violent clashes between opponents of mega-basins and gendarmes in Sainte-Soline. Last week, the family of an environmental activist between life and death filed a complaint for “attempted murder” and “willful obstruction of the arrival of help”.
After the chaos of Sainte-Soline, legal proceedings accumulate. Two new complaints were filed on Monday concerning demonstrators injured on March 25 during violent clashes in Deux-Sèvres between opponents of mega-basins and gendarmes. Four procedures are now open, announced Tuesday, April 4 the prosecutor of Rennes.
These two new complaints concern a man born in 1995 who suffers in particular from “trauma to the left foot with bone crashing which he attributes to a disencirclement grenade”, with an ITT set at a minimum of 60 days, and a woman born in 2003 , presenting a “very significant facial polytrauma and leg injuries”, whose ITT is provisionally set at 100 days, said Philippe Astruc during a press conference.
The Rennes public prosecutor’s office is competent for military matters and, as such, has been responsible for these investigations involving a priori the gendarmes.
Call for witnesses
Regarding the two men seriously injured during the prohibited demonstration, the vital prognosis of the 34-year-old “remains engaged” while the 32-year-old “would have come out of a coma and would have finished his recovery phase”, added the prosecutor of Rennes, which seized the general inspection of the national gendarmerie to carry out the investigations.
“If I favor for the time being a prosecution investigation, I do not exclude the opening of a judicial investigation in a second time (…) The qualifications retained at this stage are aggravated violence with an ITT greater than 8 days per person holding public authority and not assisting a person in danger,” said Philippe Astruc.
The first stage of the investigations will be to “precisely determine the origin of the injuries observed” then to establish “the possible causal link between the action of the gendarmes and these injuries”, he added.
The prosecutor notably requested that “all the squadron leaders” present in Sainte-Soline be heard.
In addition to the referral of recordings of conversations and videos of the gendarmerie, Philippe Astruc launched a call for witnesses so that “direct witnesses can make themselves known” and invited “those with videos or photos to send a copy ” .
The rally on March 25 around the disputed basin of Sainte-Soline, which attracted between 6,000 and 30,000 people, gave rise to violent clashes between demonstrators and the police.
With AFP
