« Depuis mercredi, je ne dors quasiment plus », raconte le policier chargé par un automobiliste
That day he saw a powerful BMW rush at him in the Chartrons district. ” I’ve had…
That day he saw a powerful BMW rush at him in the Chartrons district. “I had time to step aside so as not to be hit and I fired to move the driver aside, explains the policeman. I was afraid to die. I felt he was capable of giving a swerve at any time to crash into me. »
“I was afraid of dying. I felt he was capable of giving a swerve at any time to crash into me”
The testimony of this official marks the audience at the hearing in immediate comparison to this Monday, September 12. Just as the defendant’s chase had marked motorists and pedestrians who gathered on the side of rue Lucien-Faure five days earlier, around 5 p.m., when traffic was dense. Driving in a zigzag, passing on the sidewalks, excessive speeding: facts that earned their author, Anthony Zigler, 33, to have been sentenced to three years in prison.
“I was dumb”
At the hearing the defendant admits the facts. “I was stupid,” he said. I want to apologize. I didn’t want to put the police in danger but I was seized with fear. ” Afraid of what ? To permanently lose his driving license, which had just been suspended, he explained after his arrest. But prosecutor Olivier Étienne assumes there is more to it. He points to the car, discounted at nearly 60,000 euros. Officially, it belongs to the defendant’s aunt by marriage, “but she does not even know where it was purchased, whether it is insured or not, and she did not respond to the police summons to explains it. »
He is also surprised by the 5,500 euros in cash that the defendant was carrying with him, in accordance with the personal savings intended to buy a quad for his… 3-year-old son! And he sees there rather the trace of a concealed work. Finally, he underlines the legal past of the motorist, already condemned for having notably struck a car at the exit of a discotheque, which had resulted in the death of a person.
“Unfavorable media context”
Pour Me Sapata, who defends the policeman, “the refusal to comply should no longer be an option. These facts come up too often. “20% more cases between 2020 and 2021, confirms the public prosecutor. But for M.e Benoît Ducos-Ader, lawyer for the defendant, the judgment should not take into account a “unfavorable media environment” for his client. And to recall that at the start of the said facts, there is no infraction. “If he got scared, it was because the police wanted to check his vehicle after hearing about tampered BMWs. Moreover, the qualification of intentional homicide was not retained. »