On February 16, Jérémie Cohen was hit by a tram in Bobigny, after being violently attacked by several people. Of Jewish faith, this 30-year-old succumbed to his injuries the day after the accident. Two months after the events, two men were taken into custody after going to the police station on April 15. We explain the case to you.
[Mis à jour le 15 avril 2022 à 16h23] This Friday, April 15, the Bobigny prosecutor announced that two men had been indicted in the investigation into the death of Jérémie Cohen. They were already in custody after surrendering themselves to the police station on Tuesday, April 12. What are the charges? The investigation is open for “willful violence in a meeting” and for “willful violence resulting in death without the intention of giving it”, as indicated in the press release from the Bobigny prosecutor.
When these two men, aged 27 and 23, went to the police station on April 12, they made confessions that were very useful for the progress of the investigation. In fact, they described two scenes of successive violence, violence that they linked to the “behaviour of the victim” (Jérémie Cohen). But the prosecutor clarified that the reasons for these two attacks “remain to be determined”. They have since been remanded in custody.
The tragedy in question occurred on February 16. The death of Jérémie Cohen, due to his passage under a tram, in Bobigny in Seine-Saint-Denis, was quickly the subject of the opening of an investigation, for “involuntary homicide”: the young man, handicapped, was very violently attacked a few moments before hitting the tram, in a clear desire to escape his attackers. The victim being of Jewish faith, the discriminatory and anti-Semitic nature of the attack has been repeatedly questioned by investigators, the media, but also by a part of the political class. “Why is no media, politician or member of the government talking about the death of Jérémie Cohen, beaten up by scum?”, For example, the president of the Reconquête! party, Eric Zemmour, was indignant on April 4 on Twitter. . The polemicist has since made this legal case a political subject, accusing the media and the political class of wanting to silence the aggression of the young man. The press release from the Bobigny prosecutor, released on April 15, did not provide any additional information on the issue: “at this stage, there is still no objective element allowing a discriminatory motive, in particular anti-Semitic, to be characterized the origin of the violence”, he explained.
Jérémie Cohen’s father spoke on BFMTV on the evening of April 4, alongside his lawyer. He said he did not want the video of the assault released. And to add that he did not understand the slowness of justice: “We found ourselves in a somewhat difficult situation. We found ourselves in a vacuum at the level of the investigation. help those who could help me. And I actually asked Eric Zemmour if he could help me with the investigation. I asked him if he could do something for our son to make so that the investigation is not stifled. He was good enough to do it, for that I would like to thank him”.
Gérald Cohen, father of Jérémy Cohen: “I asked Éric Zemmour if he could help us, as part of the investigation, to do something” pic.twitter.com/CWoc7K6skA
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) April 4, 2022
The lawyer for the Cohen family insisted on the same set to put the file back on clearly judicial tracks: “It cannot be a politician who can solve this problem. Only the judicial authority can provide answers. I don’t I have nothing against Mr. Zemmour, political recovery does not come only from him, with the approach of the presidential election. […] The Cohen family and their lawyers have only one objective, and that is to deal with the only competent authority: the judicial authority.”
In early April, a video went viral on social media. It is that of the attack on young Jérémie Cohen, which took place on February 17, 2022. We see a dozen individuals gathered at the foot of a building in Bobigny, in Seine-Saint-Denis. They beat Jérémie Cohen, obviously alone and helpless. He is then seen collapsing behind a car, then getting up and heading towards the city tram tracks. A passing tram hit him head-on. Screams follow, then the video is cut. However, this video, which is very blurred, does not make it possible to hold all the parameters and the context of the attack: in fact, the family of Jérémie Cohen affirms that he was wearing a kippah that day, his brother, Raphael Cohen, even stating in an interview with Radio Shalom March 31: “There is a yarmulke that has been found, that I can tell you”. In addition, his father confided that his son assaulted on February 17 suffered from a disability “which was not physically visible”, another aspect which the video cannot testify.
It is important to note that the family of the victim is not behind the dissemination of this video. In fact, according to information from i24NEWS, via the tweet of journalist Néomie Halouia, the father of Jérémie Gérald Cohen, said he was “very shocked by the broadcast of the video to which the family was opposed”. Néomie Halouia adds that he “deems the dissemination of images of his son’s death to be incredibly violent and regrets that his dignity was not respected”.
What happened to Jérémie Cohen on February 16, 2022? After being violently attacked by a dozen individuals (as evidenced by the video), he headed, sounded, towards the tracks of the Bobigny tramway, in Seine-Saint-Denis, without anyone knowing if he intended to get to the nearest tram station to get away from his attackers or if he walked aimlessly in shock. Still, he was hit by a line 1 tram (which crosses the town of Bobigny), at avenue Jean-Jaurès. The RATP claimed that he “crossed the platform of the tracks outside the pedestrian crossings”: since he died when the train passed and he was alone at that time, the investigation opened by the Bobigny prosecutor’s office reports an “involuntary homicide”.
Only, since the attack took place a few moments before Jérémie went on the tracks and was hit by a tram, his family believes that it has a link with his death, and is therefore indignant that this first investigation was not carried out. did not report any aggression before the fatal accident. Indeed, this investigation by the Bobigny Prosecutor’s Office concluded that a “traffic accident”, even though the investigators had not yet viewed the “tram cameras”, as Jérémie Cohen’s brother explained, still at the microphone. of Radio Shalom. Raoult Cohen was thus indignant at having to “conduct his own investigation” into the death of his son, recalling that if he had not taken the initiative to “call for witnesses”, the investigation would be “gone by the wayside”.
How has the investigation progressed?
In a press release sent to the press on Monday April 4, the Bobigny prosecutor’s office indicated that a judicial investigation had been opened on March 29 for “intentional violence in a meeting that resulted in death without the intention of giving it”. The prosecution affirms that the elements collected during the first investigation made it possible to establish that the victim “had suffered violence for a few moments with the accident”, which is in line with the words of Jérémie Cohen’s family, but which is also based on the video circulating on social networks. The press release indicated that a second investigation had been opened for “intentional violence in meetings”: two investigations parallels are thus in progress. After the call for witnesses and the speeches of the family of Jérémie Cohen, the elements of the drama were collected little by little by the investigators, until these two men went to the police station on April 12. Their revelations about the course of the attack and about Jérémie Cohen’s previous actions and “behaviours” are valuable information that may allow justice to be done more quickly. moment, neither the discriminatory reason nor the authors of this drama are identified, as indicated by the Bobigny prosecutor in a press release on April 15.