A relentless abnegation. Listening to Evelyne Cohen, this Thursday, April 7, it took the intuition and mobilization of her entire family to relaunch the investigation into the death of their son, Jérémie. Otherwise the case could very well have remained officially the story of a tragic traffic accident. For four weeks, his brothers Gabriel and Raphaël as well as his parents struggled to find information on the circumstances of his death, after he hit the T1 tram around 8 p.m. in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) , on February 16. For forty minutes, the mother of the victim, who had brought together a handful of journalists at the Novotel in Bagnolet, detailed, chronologically, the progress of the two investigations. That of the Cohens and that of the police. Where it appears that the belief of the investigators that it was a simple accident, as well as a part of bad luck, could have had disastrous consequences, namely the destruction of potential exhibits.
The day after the tragedy, the parents, heard at the Bobigny police station, were asked by the investigators why their son was “pursued”, as recounted by a witness. The same day, Gabriel goes to the scene of the accident. He returns on Sunday February 20 in the company of his brother Raphaël, to question the inhabitants. “Some passers-by are starting to report a possible altercation”, says Evelyne Cohen, who specifies that “people do not speak French well” but that they “have seen and heard things”. The siblings are therefore convinced that Jérémie’s death is not accidental. On February 22, the Cohen brothers distribute “flyers”, calls for witnesses, in neighborhood mailboxes. That same day, an investigator explains to them that the investigation is focusing on the tram driver. Was he in his normal state, was he on the phone? After hearing the driver, the police decide to close the investigation for manslaughter, which they will explain to the Cohen family on February 23.
Deputies contacted
“We urge her to view the cameras. To continue her research before closing the investigation. She replies that the prosecution has closed the investigation and that she can no longer intervene”, relates Evelyne Cohen, who points out this that day to the investigator that “his explanations on the impact of the tramway did not correspond to the wound that (his) son had in his eye”. Several recordings seem usable: those of the RATP, and then those of the entrance hall near which Jérémie Cohen crossed. From Sunday February 27, eleven days after the tragedy, the Cohen family is working to find videos of the facts. Gabriel contacts the RATP mediator so that he can keep the recordings, as well as “the IGPN, the Cnil, the mayor of Bobigny, the Bobigny police station, the CEO of the RATP, the service managing the RATP videos, the Ministry of the Interior, the public prosecutor” and even “fifty deputies taken at random from the directory”. No one will answer him except the IGPN, which returns the file to the Bobigny police station and the RATP video management department, which responds on March 1 that the videos are “erased”.
Everything changes on Thursday, March 3. “Gabriel opens the email calling for witnesses and notes the receipt of several emails from witnesses to the attack, including one containing a video”, says Evelyne Cohen. In this one minute and six second film, we discern the “lynching” of Jérémie by about fifteen individuals, and his death. By corresponding with this witness, Gabriel learns that on February 17, 2022, the witness had already sent this video to the French section of the International Police Association (IPA), an NGO calling for friendship between police officers around the world. According to our information, this witness lives in Dubai, and does not necessarily know how the French police work. When Gabriel contacted the IPA, the organization replied on March 16 that it had received nothing. On March 25, she sends back a message: the email and the video have been sent, but they have fallen into “spam”.
movie destroyed
The family therefore hastens to inform the competent authorities of this video which changes everything, and proves, without dispute, that Jérémie was indeed attacked. On March 7, Gabriel contacts the social landlords of the building hall at 181, avenue Jean Jaurès, in Bobigny, who reply that they can only extract the video surveillance on request from the police and that these films are destroyed after twenty days. At that time, Jérémie Cohen had been dead for nineteen days. On March 9, Gabriel Cohen goes to different police departments to bring the video of his brother’s attack. We don’t receive it. He also sends it by email to the IGPN, which will send it the next day to the Bobigny police station.
On March 14, Gabriel went again to the Bobigny police station to file a complaint for intentional homicide. The commissioner confirms to him that the video, which has been received, is “under analysis”. What has happened since February 23, the closing date of the investigation into the tram driver? “The police station was continuing its investigations into the altercation initially mentioned by a witness, despite the difficulties in collecting testimonies”, indicates the Bobigny prosecution. No act of investigation or hearing of witnesses is mentioned.
Witness heard
In her story, Evelyne Cohen adds that on March 14, at the police station, “we still cannot, after twenty-six days of investigation, confirm to her that all the available videos have been viewed or at least requisitioned”. The social landlords will confide, the same day, that they have not been contacted on this subject. Things will start to move on March 11. Informed by the investigators, the prosecution decides to continue the investigations as part of an investigation “into the facts of intentional violence in a meeting”, indicates the prosecutor of Bobigny in a press release, this Thursday, April 7. A witness is then heard and indicates, still according to the prosecutor, “having assisted the victim who was being attacked”, as well as other people. On March 16, following a meeting between the Bobigny prosecutor and the first two lawyers for the Cohen family, the preliminary investigation was confirmed. The prosecution will finally change its mind on March 29, deciding to open a judicial investigation for “willful violence in a meeting that resulted in death without intention to give it”, with the appointment of an investigating judge. The investigation is entrusted to the judicial police of the department.
In the meantime, investigators have begun to wake up. On March 18, they told the Cohen family that they were trying to get their hands on the video of the building lobby, which they did not request in time. “The investigator confirms to us that she has difficulty collecting testimonies”, says Evelyne Cohen. The case finally takes on another dimension on Monday, April 4, when the film of the attack is broadcast on the networks, “without the knowledge” of the family and “without” their “consent”. “A complaint against the person who made this broadcast will be filed in this direction”, indicates Evelyne Cohen. With the Express, the “collective of Vigilants”, a militant “Jewish” movement, which “wants to denounce anti-Semitism”, claimed responsibility for the operation.
“Police shortcomings”
And today ? The police attempt to recover the recordings, as best they can, despite their initial overwriting. “They received the family at the start with incredible indifference. The worst and the irremediable thing is the videos”, regrets master Gilles-William Goldnadel, one of the Cohens’ lawyers. “The prosecutor’s statement was very clear, but his version of the course of events does not conform to the reality experienced by the Cohen family. He forgot certain elements concerning the shortcomings of the police between February 17 and the Beginning of the month.
Initially, the police were not in bad faith considering that it was a traffic accident, but they became in bad faith very quickly when the family brought all this evidence”, underlined Master Franck Serfati, the lawyer in charge of the criminal aspect, at the Novotel press conference. No arrests have yet taken place. At this stage, it is impossible to say whether the attack has anti-Semitic motives. All the actors in this dossier invite caution on this point.