his lawyer asks for “the identification of the policeman”
Lucie Simon, lawyer for the protester amputated with a testicle after being injured during the January 19 demonstration in Paris, speaks about the condition of her client and the filing of a complaint.
“A cruel blow, a sadistic blow.” Three days after the demonstration against the pension reform in Paris, the demonstrator, injured and amputated of a testicle last Thursday, is “still in a state of shock”, affirms his lawyer, Lucie Simon, guest this Sunday of BFMTV.
The man is “traumatized”
Aged 26, Ivan S. was released from hospital but remains “traumatized” after the fact. “His life is changing with irreversible consequences on his physical health and his mental health”, explains Lucie Simon.
It is also “misunderstanding” which remains, hence the filing of a complaint with a civil action for “willful violence by a person holding public authority resulting in mutilation”.
Lucie Simon says she is “surprised that there is no investigation” and that her client has not been interviewed by the General Inspectorate of the National Police. “We regret a form of judicial inertia in these cases,” she denounces, adding that she wants to “go further and faster”.
“We ask for the identification of the policeman. We need to hear the policeman, to know his version even though I doubt that it satisfies us”, adds the lawyer.
The young demonstrator had fallen to the ground during a police charge. “A first policeman kicks him then he falls and finds himself on his back”, details his lawyer. He is then “perfectly harmless when a policeman strikes him with a truncheon in a perfectly deliberate manner in the genitals”.
“A purely gratuitous act”
“Is it necessary for this policeman to come and get angry at this point with a truncheon in the genitals of my client knowing that there is no arrest afterwards”, claims Lucie Simon on BFMTV.
“It’s a purely gratuitous act with an extremely violent blow,” she adds. She points out that her client did not throw a projectile or was not violent towards the police, thus rejecting the hypothesis of a gesture of self-defense on the part of the police officer.
The Paris police headquarters, contacted by BFMTV, indicated that “in a context of extreme violence and as part of a police maneuver to arrest violent individuals, the police chief asked the Director of Order public and traffic that the required circumstances of the incident report clearings”.
Government spokesman Olivier Véran said this Sunday, on BFMTV, to have “a lot of empathy” for the victim. “You have to understand the conditions under which this intervention was carried out. What the prefecture says is that it was a heavy sequence for the police, so you have to be able to identify what would be self-defense or not” , he concluded, asking for the opening of an investigation.