Calais: a CRS sentenced for assaulting a volunteer helping refugees

Published on : 09/02/2021 – 14:45

An even more severe sentence than the prosecution’s requisitions. A CRS was sentenced, Thursday, September 2, to eighteen months suspended prison sentence and two years of prohibition to exercise for the assault of a British volunteer in Calais on the sidelines of an evacuation of migrants. His two subordinates were released.

The prosecution of Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais) had requested in June a year of suspended imprisonment and five years of prohibition to exercise against the chief brigadier. And six months suspended prison sentence and a one-year ban on practice against the other two, suspected of having modified their testimonies to corroborate that of their leader.

On July 31, 2018, the three CRS, companies 40 and 61, participated in an operation to evacuate migrants under a bridge in Calais, a crossing point to England.

In his report of interpellation, the brigadier-chief affirmed that British associations “vehement” had got involved, and that he had, “in a reflex of defense”, pushed back one of them, Tom Ciotkowski, who fell and “drags him down to the ground”.

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The two reports of testimonies of a sergeant and a peacekeeper, who was him in the van at the time of the facts, corroborate his statements.

PV “whose content does not correspond at all to the truth”

The Help Refugees volunteer was arrested, dismissed for contempt and violence against a police officer and finally released in 2019 thanks to videos taken by associations that contradict the statements of officials.

On the basis of the IGPN report, the prosecution had sent back to correctional the three officials, all for forgery in public writing and the chief brigadier for willful violence by a person holding public authority without ITT.

On the videos shown at the hearing in June, we see Tom Ciotkowski pushed by the sergeant and falling, alone, on the road over the slide, as a truck passes.

“When we are at the prosecution, we must be able to have clear, objective minutes [et pouvoir avoir] confidence “, underlined the prosecutor Dorothée Perrier. This one adding to have the” unpleasant impression “that the minutes,” whose contents do not correspond at all to the truth “,” it is to cover violence and justify an arrest untimely “.

One of the two subordinates was reprimanded, the other was not sanctioned, and the chief brigadier went to the disciplinary council which proposed a week of eviction.

With AFP