Seven years after the violent arrest of Théodore Luhaka, in Aulnay-sous-Bois, the police officers on trial were sentenced Friday evening to suspended prison sentences of three to twelve months.
“A decision of appeasement”, “a decision of truth” and above all, a “victory”. It is in these terms that Théo Luhaka’s lawyer reacted, Friday evening, January 19, to the verdict handed down a little earlier. Seven years after the violent arrest to which Théo Luhaka was subjected in 2017 in Aulnay-sous-Bois, and during which one of the three police officers had notably struck with a baton which had seriously injured him in the anus, justice has delivered its verdict. The perpetrator of the baton attack was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence, while the two other police officers received a three-month suspended prison sentence.
On Thursday, the attorney general requested a three-year suspended prison sentence for Marc-Antoine Castelain, 34 years old and author of the baton attack. The jurors ultimately found him guilty of voluntary violence, but did not take into account the fact that the blow had caused permanent disability for the victim. In addition to his suspended prison sentence, the police officer was also sentenced to a 5-year ban on working on public roads and a 5-year ban on carrying a weapon. Jérémie Dulin, 42 years old, and Tony Hochart, 31 years old, therefore received a three-month suspended sentence while the attorney general had requested six and three months suspended prison sentences.
Regarding the sentences requested on Thursday, which were also more severe than those finally given, the attorney general, Me Loïc Pageot, had estimated earlier in the day this Friday that they were perhaps going to “appear derisory”, before to justify them by the “absence of criminal record” of the three accused and the long time which has passed since the arrest. “As long as they are convicted for what they did, everything suits me,” assured the victim, who said he felt like a “living dead” since his arrest. Now aged 29, Théo Luhaka, seriously injured in the anus by a baton blow received on February 2, 2017, has irreversible after-effects despite two operations. At the end of the trial Friday evening, he did not wish to speak.