An American-Chilean man, visiting Paris for the Olympic Games, filed a complaint with the IGPN. He denounces a violent arrest near the aquatic center, in Seine-Saint-Denis.
The trip to Paris of Neil Andrew Frias Diaz, a 35-year-old American-Chilean, turned into a nightmare. He tells our colleagues at Parisian that on Tuesday, June 30, he went to the aquatic center in Seine-Saint-Denis to watch a water polo event at the Olympics, pitting France against Japan. In order to immortalize this moment for his mother who is a “Cuban Jew,” Neil Andrew takes out an Israeli flag and takes a selfie just before arriving at the ticket checks.
He says that three police officers approached him to check his identity: “They asked me why I was taking this photo, they took my phone to look in it. […]. I showed them my ticket,” helped by another spectator for translation. After that, he went back to the queue towards the entrance, but “ten minutes later, five more police officers arrived on [lui]. They [lui] have said [qu’il] was arrested. [Il a] asked why, one of them said [qu’il] was resisting.” He was then allegedly dragged by the feet to a police van.
He then claims to have spent 27 hours in police custody, unable to warn his friends or have access to a lawyer or a doctor. The thirty-year-old also describes humiliation, with a refusal to give him water and inviting him to drink in the toilets.
A complaint filed with the IGPN
Three days after this event, Neil Andrew has bruises on his arms, as well as wounds that are starting to heal. Assisted by his lawyer, David Cazeneuve, he filed a complaint with the IGPN (the General Inspectorate of the National Police). He is accused of having “put up violent resistance” and “having entered by force or fraud into a sports venue” while drunk and has been summoned on November 26, while he returns to New York on August 5. An unusual length of procedure during these Games, where the tendency is more to judge in immediate appearance to avoid these calendar inconveniences. The public prosecutor of Bobigny, Éric Mathais, explains that “the seriousness and nature of this case did not require directing it to immediate appearance”, adding that “the Bobigny prosecutor’s office was not informed of a possible complaint for unlawful violence”.
The feeling that predominates in Neil Andrew is incomprehension. In addition to affirming that he was sober on the day of the event, his lawyer assures our colleagues that “the only thing that [Neil] did, was to take out an Israeli flag. It was a France-Japan match, there were no Iranian supporters, for example, milling around,” referring to the more than tense situation in the Middle East. He adds that “these are extremely serious and worrying events.”