The L’Île-Saint-Denis case: analysis of the full audio recording
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“A bicot like that doesn’t swim” (a racist slur for people of North African origin): in 2022, six police officers were convicted of racist insults and violence during the arrest of Samir E., a 28-year-old Egyptian national, in L’Île-Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). Five of them appealed the judgement and their trial opens today. To mark the occasion, Index is publishing an analysis of the audio and video recordings of the arrest – released in full for the first time – in which the officers’ insults and bursts of laughter, and the cries of the arrested man, can be clearly heard.
- Incident date
- Location
- L'Île-Saint-Denis (France)
- Victim(s)
- Samir E.
- Consequence(s)
- Injury
- Force(s) involved
- National Police
- Methods employed
- Beating
Update: Index's analysis has now been submitted in evidence at the Paris Court of Appeal hearing taking place on 13 and 14 September 2023.
On the night of 25 to 26 April 2020, in L’Île-Saint-Denis in the Paris suburbs, Samir E., aged 28, jumped into the Seine to try to escape the police. He was suspected of theft from a building site; the case would later be dropped.
At around 1:45 am, as he came out of the water, he was immediately arrested by a group of officers. Not far away, a local resident was alerted by the cries he heard. At 1:56 am, he switched on an audio recorder and placed it on the low wall of the courtyard of his home, in front of which several police vehicles had parked. This witness would also film the scene from his window, without being noticed by the officers on the ground.
First published on Twitter by journalist Taha Bouhafs as a 2-minute-20-second video edit, these recordings sparked a political and media outcry – in particular over the racist insults that can be heard in them. Since their publication, Samir E. has filed a complaint against the officers for the violence he says he suffered from the moment of his arrest, as well as on the way to the police station. In January 2022, the Bobigny court convicted six police officers, sentencing them to between six and twelve months in prison, six months of it without suspension for some of them. The witness’s audio and video recordings – in which one can hear the insults, but also dull thuds, Samir E.’s cries, and the officers’ bursts of laughter – played a major role in the court’s decision.
As soon as the hearing ended, five of the six convicted officers announced their intention to appeal the judgement. They contest the acts of violence for which they were convicted, and deny having struck Samir E. The cries heard on the recordings were, they claim, due to a panic attack on the part of the arrested man.
As the appeal trial in this emblematic police violence case opens – at the Paris Court of Appeal on 13 and 14 September 2023 – Index is publishing for the first time the full audio and video recordings made by the witness. Presented as a video analysis, it includes a transcription of every word that can be clearly made out in the audio recording once background noise has been reduced.
The analysis also includes a 3D reconstruction of the conditions in which Samir E. was loaded into the police van, based on the statements given by the officers and by the complainant himself. Handcuffed with his hands behind his back, his hood pulled down over his head by the officers, Samir E. was placed – or thrown, according to his testimony – directly onto the floor of the van, on his left side. Up to six officers got into the van with him, three of whom held him down on the floor. While the witness’s video does not show what happened inside the van, the audio recording captures a series of dull thuds, Samir E.’s cries and moans, along with the insults the officers hurled at him and their repeated bursts of laughter.