At the Sélestat police station, death at the end of police custody – Liberation

Libé survey Article reserved for subscribers Merter Keskin, 35, died in January 2021 after his arrest. If the medical opinion attributed his death to taking cocaine, “Liberation” reveals video surveillance images of the cell where he was placed before undergoing a long ventral tackle. “I should never have called the police, I will blame myself all my life”: Elodie H. does not have enough harsh words for herself. Her fault, she thinks, is for having dialed 17 so that her ex-companion leaves the apartment, where a court order prohibited her from appearing following a conviction for domestic violence. After being arrested this night from January 12 to 13, 2021, Merter Keskin, 35, died at the police station in Sélestat (Bas-Rhin). A first medical opinion attributed the death, recorded at 5 a.m., to a recent cocaine intake, but the family’s lawyer requested a second opinion from the investigating judge in charge of the investigation. Especially since several gray areas hover over this dramatic night: what happened when Merter Keskin was arrested, that he lost a tooth, had a bloody mouth before entering, under police escort, inside the police station? And why, when he complained of feeling sick when he arrived at the police station, did four officers hold Merter Keskin on his stomach in order to uncuff him? Elodie H., the ex-wife by Merter Keskin, in his apartment in Sélestat at the end of May. (Pascal Bastien / Liberation) CCTV images of the police custody cell, unpublished and obtained by Liberation, show several police officers carrying out a belly tackle for… three and a half minutes. A dangerous gesture, especially when the person who undergoes it is overweight and restless. A gesture already implicated in several deaths (those of…