The Rennes prosecutor’s office announced on Friday, October 28, that the Breton city’s court of appeal had canceled the indictment for manslaughter of the former prefect of Loire-Atlantique, Claude d’Harcourt, after the death in 2019 by Steve Maia Caniço, in Nantes, during the Fête de la Musique. The former official had been indicted for a year, as had the former sub-prefect Johann Mougenot and the police commissioner Grégoire Chassaing, in the investigation into the death of Steve Maia Caniço, drowned in the Loire following a a controversial police operation on a quay in Nantes. Read also Article reserved for our subscribers Death of Steve Maia Caniço: a witness and the telephone at the heart of the investigation On July 5, before the investigating chamber, their lawyers had requested a cancellation of the indictment, for the first two ; and a dismissal, for the third. The councils had challenged the independence and impartiality of the expertise agency Index, which produced a video reconstruction of the police intervention added to the investigation file. In its judgment delivered on Friday, the investigating chamber of the Rennes Court of Appeal “declared the nullity of the expertise” of the Index agency. Only Claude d’Harcourt was successful. He is granted assisted witness status, the prosecution said in a statement. The indictments of Johann Mougenot and Grégoire Chassaing, also for manslaughter, are confirmed. Fall during the police intervention The investigating magistrate had notified the end of the judicial investigation on March 7 in this case. The Rennes prosecutor’s office, which must take its requisitions three months after this notification, declared in June to Agence France-Presse that it was waiting for the investigating chamber to rule on the appeals of the indicted. Steve Maia Caniço, 24-year-old extracurricular animator, had disappeared after a police operation intended to put an end to an electro evening on the banks of the Loire on the night of June 21 to 22, 2019. The analysis of the telephone records of his telephone made it possible to locate his fall in the Loire at 4:33 a.m., during the police intervention. Saying they felt threatened and were victims of projectiles, the police responded by firing thirty-three tear gas canisters, twelve defense bullets and ten de-encirclement grenades. Witnesses said they were blinded by a cloud of tear gas. Seven other people had fallen into the Loire during the police intervention. The body of Steve Maia Caniço was not found until July 29, about two kilometers upstream. Read also (2020): Article reserved for our subscribers “The police operation, as it was carried out, was madness”: one year after the death of Steve Maia Caniço, the bitterness of his relatives Our selection of articles on the death of Steve Maia Caniço The facts. On the night of June 21 to 22, 2019, at 4 a.m., police went to the Quai Wilson in Nantes to disperse a techno party. Scuffles broke out and participants said they were blinded by a cloud of tear gas; some, disoriented, fell into the river. Steve Maia Caniço, 24, had been missing since that evening, until his body was found on July 29. The investigation. Since the tragedy, the investigation has been particularly slow. The mobilization of his friends increased the media coverage and put pressure on the authorities. The investigation was finally disoriented in September in Rennes, at the request of the two Nantes investigating judges in charge of the case. His phone and a witness are at the heart of the latest advances in the investigation. The IGPN report. The day after the discovery of the body, the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) published a report affirming that there is no “direct link between the intervention of the police and the disappearance of Mr. Steve Maia Canico”. For our journalist specializing in the police, it is a way of “justifying the police intervention while criticizing its methods”. In September, a report of the general inspection of the administration estimated that the commissioner of police on the ground had “lack of discernment”. An after. “The police operation, as it was carried out, was madness”: a year after his death, his relatives express their bitterness. The case summarized in video: What we know about the death of Steve Maia Canico in Nantes. The World with AFP