Death of Nahel: the Court of Cassation overturns the ruling that had ruled out a murder charge
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On 10 June 2026, the criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation, France’s highest court, overturned the Versailles Court of Appeal ruling that had, last March, ruled out a murder charge against the police officer who shot and killed Nahel Merzouk. The case goes back to the Versailles investigating chamber, with a different panel of judges, which must decide afresh how to classify the facts. The way to a murder trial before an assize court (cour d’assises) is open again.
View of the 3D reconstruction of the fatal shot fired at Nahel Merzouk. Image: Index.
On 5 March 2026, the investigating chamber of the Versailles Court of Appeal had reclassified the charges against the officer involved in the death of Nahel Merzouk, killed on 27 June 2023 in Nanterre: ruling out intent to kill, it sent him to stand trial before the Hauts-de-Seine departmental criminal court (cour criminelle, which sits without a jury) for “violence resulting in death without intent to cause it”, rather than for murder before an assize court. All the parties – the officer, the prosecutor general’s office, and the civil parties on the family’s side – had appealed to the Court of Cassation.
In a ruling of 10 June 2026 (appeal no. 26-81.675), the criminal chamber struck down this decision for failing to give adequate reasons. It noted that the investigating chamber, having itself found that the officer “deliberately used his 9 mm firearm, at short range from the victim, aimed at an area considered vital” and that he “was necessarily aware of the lethal risk of his act”, “did not justify its decision” to rule out any homicidal intent.
The case goes back to the Versailles Court of Appeal’s investigating chamber, with a different panel of judges, which must decide afresh how to classify the facts – and, whatever charge it settles on, re-examine the argument about the legal framework for police use of firearms (Article L. 435-1 of the Internal Security Code), on which the Court did not rule.
In law, the lower court retains its freedom of judgement: the Court of Cassation does not formally require it to bring a murder charge. But by itself listing the findings it deems incompatible with ruling out intent to kill, the criminal chamber leaves very little room for the charge to be reduced again.
Nearly three years after the events, the question of the charge – murder before an assize court with a jury, or fatal violence before a criminal court of professional judges alone – therefore remains open, and the trial, at one point expected in 2026, is pushed back accordingly.
In 2024, Index produced a video investigation reconstructing in 3D the circumstances of Nahel Merzouk’s killing; it was itself added to the case file.