Théo Luhaka delivered his version of the facts before the Seine-Saint-Denis Assize Court this Monday, as part of the trial of the three police officers who carried out his violent arrest in 2017.
He gave his version of the facts. Monday January 15, 2024, before the Seine-Saint Denis Assize Court, Théo Luhaka, victim of a violent arrest by three police officers on February 2, 2017 in Aulnay-sous-Bois, was able to speak at the bar. Two of the accused will be questioned on the facts this Tuesday, the third will be on Wednesday. Seven years ago, young Théo was seriously injured in the rectum by the telescopic defense baton (BTD) of one of the three police officers. Since then, Théo has suffered irreversible after-effects. This Monday, he once again accused the peacekeeper who injured him of having done it “voluntarily”.
“I was abandoned”
“Hello everyone, my name is Théo Luhaka, I’m 29 years old and today I’m not doing much, I’m at home.” This is how the latter presented himself this Monday. A week after the trial opened, Théo recounts the isolation he suffered as the years passed: “At the beginning I was in denial, I had a lot of support, I had a lot of people around me. I saw my favorite rappers, the football players I adored, it was my dream.” Since 2019, everything has changed: “They did what they could to help me, but there are limits. I am just a person attacked by the police. I was abandoned and it took me a while to realize that I don’t owe anything.” Théo went from a young person who had “full of projects” to that of a “disabled” almost thirty-year-old who is the subject of “mockery” according to him.
Several baton blows and insults
When the president of the Assize Court comes to the facts, Théo Luhaka says: “I would never have intervened if the control had not started with a slap. When I struggled, I perhaps put suddenly. The only idea I have in mind is to go into the camera’s corner, that way if they leave me for dead, I’m filmed.” He also claims to remember the beatings, even if “it remains very vague”, years after the trauma.
“Every time I asked them why they do that and they told me ‘shut up’.” It was at this moment that young Théo received the blow to the rectum with a baton. A pain “so strong” which today allows Théo to affirm the intentionality of the action of the principal accused: “it was his goal to hurt me”. He also recounts the words of his general practitioner about the BTD shot which hit the perianal area: “It’s impossible that this area, they hit it in one shot.” The sequence of events appears confused in the victim’s description, however he explains that he was hit several times outside the camera’s field of view and that the police uttered racist insults towards him. “In the car, they were all proud of themselves, none of them said there was a problem,” he accuses.
Jérémie D., one of the three accused police officers, spoke of a scuffle with blows from both sides” during his interrogation before the Assize Court of Seine-Saint-Denis, on Tuesday January 16, for describe Théo’s arrest. “I’m waiting to see what happens, the crew is trying to control this individual (Théo) but things are going wrong. He struggles, he’s a big guy, he’s strong, athletic. I decide to lend a hand to my colleagues by taking them to the ground. I miss it. I fall to the ground.” “When we decide to get Mr. Luhaka up, we take him to the wall. Once again, we tell him we want to make him sit down. Once again, he does not comply,” he also indicated.
“I died on February 2, 2017”
Théo today suffers from physical after-effects which prevent him from pursuing his dream: pursuing a career as a footballer. He says he is bothered by gas: “The illness I have is the illness found in women who give birth. But I am not a woman, I did not give birth ma’am” in s ‘addressing directly to the president. “Theo is the one who was raped, the one who had his butt eaten by the police. The image conveyed is that” he explains to highlight the humiliation experienced and his reputation in his neighborhood. “The reality of life is that I died on February 2, 2017. When the trial is over, the cops will continue. But my family will continue to live with a living dead person” declares Théo. Words of incredible violence in a desperate tone. He has also cited the series several times Monk, a program whose main character suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. “I’m going to watch Mon for the rest of his life,” he said. The trial verdict is scheduled for Friday, January 19, 2024.