Steve Maia Caniço: police commissioner Chassaing on trial, with no mention of Index’s expert report
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The trial of police commissioner Chassaing opened today. He is being tried for “involuntary manslaughter” over his role in the death of Steve Maïa Caniço on 21 June 2019 in Nantes. But the expert report produced by Index will be neither shown nor debated.
Steve Maïa Caniço died on 22 June 2019 in Nantes. He drowned in the Loire after falling into the water at around 4:30 am, while a police operation was under way to clear the participants of a rave party held on the Quai Wilson as part of the 2019 Fête de la Musique.
In November 2021, Index was commissioned by the investigating judge in charge of the case to “produce a digital reconstruction video” of the incident, based on 130+ videos / 5 hours of footage filmed by rave participants at the time of the events. In February 2022, Index submitted its final expert report to the Rennes judicial court – in the form of a 58-minute video.
After three of those placed under formal investigation (mis en examen), including Mr Chassaing, applied to have it annulled, the investigating chamber of the Rennes Court of Appeal struck out Index’s expert report for a procedural defect on 28 October 2022.
Libération today publishes an article looking back at the reasons for that annulment:
Index’s video, nearly an hour long [...], was nonetheless excluded from the judicial proceedings, as the defence sought and obtained its annulment. Lawyer Louis Cailliez, who represents Commissioner Grégoire Chassaing, argued in particular that the NGO was too partisan, in that it habitually produces reconstruction videos of police violence, working with civil parties or media outlets (including Libération). But the investigating chamber, in a decision of 28 October 2022, upheld an entirely different, purely formal ground, also raised by the lawyer. The judge had not notified the parties that he was appointing this association to carry out an expert assessment, and had not given sufficient reasons for his decision not to do so. In judicial terms, Index’s expert report does not exist: it is mentioned nowhere in the order sending Commissioner Chassaing to trial, and cannot be raised at it. Only the raw footage will be.
Since then, Index has been excluded from the proceedings – despite the substantive work the NGO carried out to help establish the truth. During Commissioner Chassaing’s trial, which is taking place this week, no mention will be made of its expert report.
Having obtained the expert report by its own means, the outlet Disclose decided to publish it in full in April 2022: