The Defender of Rights concludes that a brigadier-chief of police was the victim of “retaliations” of his hierarchy and in particular of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, after having denounced ill-treatment and racist remarks to the Paris court, according to a decision consulted this Monday, January 9 by AFP.
This independent administrative authority also considered that this policeman, Amar Benmohamed, could be considered a whistleblower.
In July 2020, Streetpress revealed the testimony of this 50-year-old brigadier, according to whom “more than a thousand defendants were mistreated” between March 2017 and mid-2019 at the depot of the Paris court where he was assigned and where people are held waiting to be brought to justice.
Amar Benmohamed, who had reported these facts internally, had himself received an administrative warning on January 4, 2021, his hierarchy reproaching him for reporting too late and the absence of the names of certain colleagues who reported the incidents to him.
“An announcement of sanction” pronounced by Darmanin
As part of Amar Benmohamed’s appeal against the confirmation of this sanction by the Administrative Court of Paris, the Defender of Rights Claire Hédon mentioned on December 12, as indicated by Streetpress, “a retaliatory measure” against the brigadier “following his reports”.
For her, “from its first reports”he has “suffered a series of unfavorable measures which reached their climax” with the warning at the beginning of 2021, whereas before his denunciations, “he had always been considered an exemplary agent”.
Sanctions against the police officers of the Paris court accused of abuse and racism
Among these “unfavorable measures (…) not unrelated to its reports of an alert”she points “announcement of punishment” targeting Amar Benmohamed “pronounced by the Minister of the Interior” Gérald Darmanin in the National Assembly just after the public revelation of the facts.
“The decision of the Defender of Rights confirms our analysis”welcomed the lawyer of Amar Benmohamed, Me Arié Alimi.
An investigation opened for “harassment”
“After covering up the racist abuse of prisoners”the Interior and the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Paris “have done everything possible to discredit the whistleblower, both through the courts and through the administrative process”according to him.
After a complaint, the person concerned obtained the opening of a judicial investigation for ” bullying “.
Claire Hédon further estimated that the “irregularities” denounced by Amar Benmohamed are, “given their seriousness, likely to receive a criminal qualification or serious and manifest violations of several international commitments ratified by France”.
The investigation opened in Paris following the articles on these denunciations has been closed.
