Following the death of Nahel. M., killed by a policeman in Nanterre, police and firefighters intervene on rue du Général Leclerc to extinguish a fire started by angry residents, June 28, 2023. MICHAEL ZUMSTEIN / VU’ FOR LE MONDE
The family of a Mauritanian man who died in custody last week has accused officers of killing him in the latest such allegation of police brutality.
The Paris prosecutor's office said the police had launched an internal probe, but family said they want an independent investigating magistrate on the case.
El Hacen Diarra, 35, encountered police late Wednesday as he was drinking a coffee outside the migrant dorms where he lived, his older brother Ibrahima said on Sunday, January 18. "He had come to France to earn a living, now he's gone forever," he told hundreds of supporters at a memorial, after his sibling died in custody in the middle of the night on Wednesday.
A video filmed by neighbors, which has been shared on social media, shows a policeman punching what appears to be a man on the ground as another officer stands by and watches. The family has filed a legal complaint, accusing security forces of "intentional violence that led to a death," their lawyer Yassine Bouzrou told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Saturday. "Witnesses saw a pool of blood at the site of the arrest," he said.
