The Court of Cassation has just upheld a verdict of impunity by confirming, in the Omar Laabidi case, a one-year suspended prison sentence for 12 police officers.
The events surrounding the Omar Laabidi case date back to March 31, 2018. The 19-year-old Club Africain supporter drowned in the Méliane river while fleeing from police officers who forced him to jump into the water by telling him "taalem oum," literally "learn to swim," even though he begged them for help, precisely because he could not swim.
After a botched investigation and proceedings biased in favor of the police officers involved, under pressure from police unions and the Ministry of the Interior, and following protests by supporters and civil society, 14 police officers involved in the death of Omar Laabidi were brought before the criminal division of the Tunis Court of First Instance. However, they were charged with manslaughter, in flagrant contradiction with the facts of the case. Twelve officers were ultimately sentenced to two years in prison.
Despite numerous clear violations of procedure and the Penal Code, on July 12, 2024, the Tunis Court of Appeal refused to reclassify the charges and upheld the conviction, while reducing the sentence of the 12 police officers to a one-year suspended prison term for manslaughter. The Court of Cassation has now confirmed this verdict.
According to the Tunisian justice system, the killers of young Omar Laabidi do not even deserve a single day in prison. In fact, they remained free throughout the entire case.
The CRLDHT :
- Strongly condemns this denial of a citizen's right to life and demands that justice be done for Omar Laabidi and his family.
- Considers that the Tunisian judicial and security authorities who handled, or rather mishandled, this case are complicit in the murder of the young fan.
- Denounces the impunity enjoyed by the police forces, which only encourages violence and homicide against citizens, and is a consequence of the clientelist relationship between President Kaïs Saïed and the country's security forces, which have supported and continue to protect the authoritarian drift resulting from the coup d'état of July 25, 2021.
- Calls on civil society and Tunisian citizens to break with this repressive regime and its subservient justice system, and to reclaim their destiny through civil and peaceful resistance.
