CRETEIL, France (AP) — At 19, he was the oldest of the group of teenagers accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at the police station in their native suburb.
“For what?” the judge asked Riad, who was taken into custody after being identified in CCTV footage of the June 29 group, the second night of nationwide unrest following the police shooting of another teenager suburbs outside of Paris.
“To bring justice to Nahel,” Riad said. Slumped and slightly disheveled after five nights in jail, he said he was unaware of the peaceful march organized by Nahel Merzouk’s family. He explained that the photo taken on his mobile phone holding a Molotov cocktail was “for social media, to give an image.
In total, more than 3,600 people have been arrested in the unrest across France since Nahel’s death on June 27, with an average age of 17, according to the Interior Ministry. The violence, which injured more than 800 law enforcement officers, has largely diminished in recent days.
French courts are working overtime to process arrests, including opening their doors over the weekend, with hearings expedited by around an hour and sentencing the same day.
The prosecutor noted that Riad learned where to get incendiary devices from Snapchat, the social network that the French government has named along with TikTok as fueling the unrest. Riad’s lawyer noted that his case was clean and that he was not charged with any significant damage or injury.
At the end of the day on Tuesday, Riad’s sentence was set: three years, with a minimum of 18 months behind bars, ban from his hometown of Alfortville for the duration of the sentence.
He collapses on the bar: “I’m not ready to go to prison. I’m really not ready. He threw a furtive kiss at his mother as he was led away.
Outside the crowded courtroom, two girls asked someone walking out what sentence they had received. “Three years? That’s crazy!” one exclaimed.
But the mood in France is stern after the unrest which authorities say caused 1 billion euros (over $1 billion) in damage. The murder of Nahel, 17, occurred during a traffic stop on June 27. The shooting, which was caught on camera, immediately stoked long-running tensions between the police and young people – almost all from minorities and mostly born in France – in deprived housing estates and suburbs.
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti issued an order on Friday calling for a “strong, firm and systematic” judicial response. Hearings began the following day, as the unrest continued into the night.
“This is not hasty justice. The message I want to convey is that justice works normally in the face of an exceptional situation,” said Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban, president of the Bobigny court.
By Tuesday evening, a total of 990 people had appeared in court and about a third had been sentenced to prison terms, according to government spokesman Olivier Veran. A third of those detained were minors, he said.
“You have a lot of first-time offenders — people who aren’t deeply delinquent, a lot of minors in school who don’t (engage) in regular criminal activity,” Ghaleh-Marzban said.
The UN rights office said the unrest showed it was time for France to consider its history of racism in policing, rather than just punishing, saying the government was to ensure that the use of force “always respects the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, non-discrimination, precaution and responsibility.
Many French legislators are demanding the maximum — and fast.
Olivier Marleix, an MP for the conservative Les Républicains party, called for all cases involving the Troubles to be dealt with within 100 days.
“Failing to punish this would hurt all of our law enforcement. Not sanctioning this would be to ignore the seriousness of the threat hanging over France,” he told the National Assembly on Tuesday.
The officer charged in the death of Nahel, 17, is meanwhile charged with intentional homicide but has yet to appear in court or even set a court date.
Rayan, an 18-year-old man detained with a group of around 30 young people throwing fuel at his local police station, was accused of having filmed a 14-second video of arsonists thrown at the Kremlin-Bicêtre building. In the footage, he shouts “Turn them on!”
It was the first time he had been arrested. He was taken to Fleury-Mérogis prison, the largest in the European Union, and wept on the stand on Tuesday. Prosecutors, who accused him of tripping a police officer while fleeing, requested a 30-month sentence and a ban on leaving his hometown.
“I’m a good person. I’ve never had a problem with the police. I have a family, I work,” he said, burying his face in his hands. “I don’t even know what what I’m doing here.”
His brief hearing resulted in a 10-month suspended sentence. His parents came to pick him up the same evening at the prison to take him home.
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Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report from Paris.