Murder of Olivio Gomes: former BAC officer sentenced to ten years in prison
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On Friday 27 March, the Yvelines assize court (cour d’assises) sentenced Gilles Guilbert, a former officer of the BAC plainclothes anti-crime unit, to ten years in prison for the murder of Olivio Gomes, shot dead with three bullets in 2020 in Poissy after being tailed by police without justification. An exceptionally rare conviction.
Olivio Gomes. Source: social media.
On Friday 27 March, the Yvelines assize court found Gilles Guilbert, a former officer of the Paris night-time BAC, guilty of murder for shooting Olivio Gomes dead with three bullets on 17 October 2020 in Poissy. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, with a lifetime ban from public service and a fifteen-year ban on carrying a weapon. He was jailed immediately.
Olivio Gomes, a 28-year-old father, had been followed for some twenty kilometres by an unmarked BAC crew, from the Paris ring road to his home. CCTV footage showed no traffic offence, contrary to the officers’ claims. Having stopped outside his home, he restarted his car while Gilles Guilbert held him at gunpoint. Guilbert opened fire, hitting him fatally in the chest.
The accused claimed self-defence, asserting that the victim had tried to run him over. Ballistic analysis established that two of the three shots were fired from the side and then from behind the vehicle, a finding incompatible with his account. The prosecutor had called for the same sentence, condemning the officers’ repeated lies throughout the proceedings. The defence, led by Lauren-Franck Liénard, had argued for acquittal.
It is exceptionally rare for a police officer to be convicted of murder committed in the line of duty.