The case centres on events at the Luxembourg-Gare C3R police station on the evening of 20 May 2023, during the ING Night Marathon. A detained man was allegedly beaten in the holding cell by an officer, reportedly in retaliation for a threat made during a tense arrest. An attempt was subsequently made to conceal what had happened.
On Tuesday, the public prosecutor's office called for prison sentences of between three and six years for the four suspended officers. The verdict has been scheduled for 25 June.
All four defence lawyers argued that their clients should be acquitted. No camera captured what took place that evening in May 2023 during the ING Night Marathon in the holding cell, and large discrepancies can be found across the accounts given by the officers present. The lawyer for the main defendant, Thierry Hirsch, argued that the charge of torture could not be sustained given the brevity of the incident, and that the criterion of self-defence was paramount. His client, he said, had been trying to fend off a punch from a man who was drunk, under the influence of drugs, and had been behaving aggressively and erratically throughout his time at the station. Hirsch also noted that scientific literature from 2021 demonstrates that an open-handed strike can cause serious facial injuries, challenging the prosecution's interpretation of the medical evidence that it could have only been a closed-fist punch.
A second officer had also been present in the small cell at the time of the incident. His lawyer, Frank Rollinger, said the events had unfolded so quickly that his client could not have intervened. His client described seeing three open-handed strikes to the victim's face and a punch to the side delivered by the main defendant. Rollinger acknowledged that complaints about police violence at the station had been made previously, but underscored that his client had never been involved in or witnessed anything of the kind during his two and a half years working there. "He was genuinely shocked when it suddenly happened", Rollinger said. "There must have been a short-circuit reaction. The working conditions there are extremely complicated. It just went out of control." In his view, the matter might warrant disciplinary or moral consequences, but not criminal prosecution.
The defence for a third officer, who had also been present in the room adjoining the cell, argued that the incident would have occurred regardless of whether his client had been there that day. This officer had not even been on duty at the time, had already consumed alcohol, and had simply accompanied a colleague while waiting to go for a drink.
The lawyer for the fourth defendant, the senior officer who had instructed a young colleague to record details in the arrest report without knowing what had actually taken place, said his client had written three notes in a moment of poor judgement that he deeply regrets. He had not sought to benefit himself or anyone else from doing so.
In their closing statements, each of the defendants expressed remorse. The main defendant said he had never intended to harm anyone. Two of the officers asked the judges to consider the impact the case had already had on their families. One of them, along with another defendant, also apologised directly to the young police officer who had been asked to falsify the report and who, to this day, continues to face a difficult reception from colleagues. The same officer who had given the young policeman his instructions exclaimed: "My heart bleeds for the profession, and at the same time I am ashamed", he said. "I was not at my best at that time, and there's no way I can take it back. I am sorry."
