LEAD: Amnesty seeks justice for five dead in French police custody

Nov 30, 2011, 17:18 GMT

Paris - Human rights group Amnesty International called Wednesday for an impartial investigation into the deaths of five men, all African or of African origin, in French police custody since 2004.

In a report on the five cases, Amnesty denounced the 'disproportionate use of force' by the police, as well as their 'tendency to more often stop foreigners and people of foreign origin.'

The report also pointed to a lack of impartiality in investigations into suspected cases of police brutality and the 'reticence' of prosecutors to pursue cases against the police.

Only one of the five cases has led to police officers being charged.

In one case a 69-year-old Algerian pensioner, Ali Ziri, was stopped by police while driving in the Paris suburbs with a friend in June 2009. The two were taken to have their blood alcohol level tested at a police station.

An investigation by a independent commission, the CNDS, which oversaw police work until earlier this year, found that the men were left handcuffed on the ground, with their faces in their own vomit, for between 30 and 75 minutes.

Ziri died in hospital the following day.

In another case, a 38-year-old Malian, Abou Bakari Tandia, fell into a coma after being taken to a police station to have his papers checked in December 2004. He never woke up from the coma and died a month later.

The police initially claimed Tandia had banged his head against a wall in the police station. But a medical report concluded he had died of oxygen deprivation as a result of being heavily restrained by police.

The three other cases related to a 41-year-old Moroccan, Mohamed Boukrourou, a 25-year-old Frenchman of Senegalese origin, Lamine Dieng, and a 22-year-old Tunisian, Abdelhakim Ajimi.

Ajimi's death is the only one of the five that has led to a prosecution. Seven police officers are to go on trial over his death in January.

In each of the cases, the police pinned the suspects face down on the ground with their hands cuffed behind their back to immobilize them - a technique that can cause suffocation.

Amnesty condemned the use of the practice as dangerous and called for police to use only the 'necessary force' during arrests.

The group also called on the French government to uphold its responsibility to protect human life and ensure that allegations of grave human rights violations were independently investigated.

Reacting to the report, a spokesman for the national police, Pascal Garibian, said the police was the 'most monitored of French administrations, internally and externally'.

The 3,000 disciplinary measures taken each year against police officers was proof of the impartiality of police oversight bodies, he said.

But the CNDS, in its last annual report in April, before it was scrapped, complained of persistent attempts 'to limit or thwart investigations or checks relating to the activity of people in security functions.'

The commission has since been replaced by a state rights defender, Dominique Baudis, an appointee of the president.