Operation Dead Justice: tribute to the victims of the prison van attack

Les magistrats et avocats ont observé une minute de silence. MIDI LIBRE – Eva Bonnet-Gonnet

This Wednesday, May 15, on the steps of the Alès courthouse, Alès lawyers and magistrates gathered for a minute of silence.

On the courthouse square, a flock of black and white dresses gathered at the end of the morning. The day after the violent assault on a convoy transferring a detainee to the court, in Eure, the Alesian lawyers and magistrates, with closed faces, honored the memory of the two dead prison officers and the injured of the attack with a minute of silence. The operation named "dead justice", echo to the movement "dead prison"carried out within penitentiary establishments that same day, is launched.

"We're not going to fold"

While transfers of detainees brought before the courts are, until further notice, suspended, the Alesian court is little impacted by this rule. For today. "We had few hearings scheduled. We will see what happens next tomorrow, depending on the information that reached us in the afternoon", assures Céline Simitian, president of the Alès court. "This minute of silence was organized in particular to show our solidarity, our support for those who suffer in this tragic event. For our part, we will show that our justice is mature and strong. We will not bend, no withdrawal from the law", affirms the latter, who also supports the demands for resources for prison officers, in correlation with their risks taken in the face of delinquents who have "neither code, nor honor".

For Abdelkrim Grini, public prosecutor of Alès, these homicides are "intolerable" and "atrocious". "These agents who died were only doing their job […] These events of absolute savagery only strengthen my determination to fight against drug trafficking which is corrupting society. We will not give up, and we will stop at nothing, even in Alès, assures Abdelkrim Grini.

Claims to review

For its part, the bar, represented today by Nordine Tria, former president of Alès, in the absence of Guillaume Garcia, positions itself as in solidarity with the demands of the prison unions . One of them, however, stipulating criminal procedures by videoconference, is contradicted and turns out to be a request "worrying" for the bar. "The bar positions itself against the return of this remote method, which must nevertheless remain an exception", specifies Nordine Tria.