A French policeman named Sebastien Jallamion was severely punished for making “Islamophobic” posts on Facebook. The prosecutor even wanted him to do jail time for his heinous crimes, but the judge refused to go along with it.

Some months later Mr. Jallamion was ambushed and badly beaten by a group of North Africans. There was a notable reluctance on the part of the upper reaches of the justice system to investigate the crime. Months later there are no arrests and no suspects.

Did someone give the order to let the investigation languish? And, more chillingly, did someone give the order for a “hit” on Sebastien Jallamion? The video report below asks those questions, but is unable to provide any clear answers.

Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

00:00 Sebastien Jallamion

00:04 in December 2014 published on his private Facebook account

00:08 seven pictures that denounced the murderers of Hervé Gourdel

00:12 and its instigators. A colleague, Ouarda Laareg,

00:16 reported the fact to her superiors. An administrative investigation suggested

00:20 a possible culpability, but Albert Doutre, the director of the department of public security,

00:24 sent Sebastien Jallamion before a disciplinary council

00:28 and the criminal court in Lyon. In October 2015

00:32 the disciplinary council suspended Sebastien from his police duty

00:36 for two years without pay. The prosecutor demanded

00:40 six months in prison, a lifelong interdiction from any public function,

00:44 And… psychiatric monitoring. He was sentenced “only”

00:48 to a fine of €5,000 and an inscription in his [newly established] criminal record.

00:52 In April 2016 in Lyon Sebastien was savagely attacked

00:56 by at least two Maghrebins with, no doubt, a knuckleduster

01:00 that caused serious injuries to his face.

01:04 What came next is incredible in a democracy: no usual procedures of investigation in a case

01:08 Where the attackers were caught in the act, when a police officer was attacked, were followed.

01:12 As a result, the investigation was much longer and random. Were the instructions

01:17 of higher authority given on purpose in a context of an administrative and judicial harassment

01:21 in order to cause the social death of a brave man? We have to hope that all light

01:25 will be shed on this terrible case.

01:32 The charge: seven pictures on the Facebook.

01:36 I would like to point out that it was

01:40 An anonymous Facebook account, in which

01:44 there was no mention of my occupation or my real identity;

01:48 and as a result I was talking totally private.

01:53 It was one of my work colleagues, who was one of my

01:57 “friends”, who was obviously shocked

02:01 by the content of this publication, and who went to talk about it

02:05 to the hierarchy. So one morning when I came to work

02:09 I was summoned by the chief superintendent,

02:13 who had on his desk copies of the pictures

02:17 from my Facebook. He informed me that he was going to start

02:21 an administrative investigation in order to find out if I had committed a disciplinary offense.

02:26 There was a disciplinary investigation, and a fault was suggested

02:33 by my superior of a breach of my lateral duty,

02:37 and the director of the department of public security

02:41 of the Rhone region, at that time judged that it wasn’t enough,

02:45 and sent me again before the disciplinary council.

02:49 I went before this disciplinary council, and there was a suggestion

02:53 of a temporary suspension from duty.

02:57 I was suspended on October 6th 2015

03:01 for two years.

03:05 At the same time a judiciary investigation was underway,

03:09 also on the orders of the director of the department of the public security,

03:13 and who asked the prosecutor in a case, where — as you remember —

03:17 there was no complaint, and no victim, and no filing

03:21 of a civil complaint from any anti-racist association, for example…

03:25 I went for the first time before the criminal court.

03:29 So the prosecutor demanded in the first instance,

03:33 before the criminal court of […], a sentence of six years,

03:37 A lifelong prohibition from exercising any public function, five years of prohibition

03:41 from carrying a gun, which is rather secondary, when you know that you

03:46 cannot work in any public function, and mandatory psychiatric monitoring… no less.

03:51 The judge in the criminal court was clearly surprised

03:54 by the severity of this demand, and she didn’t follow it,

03:58 because she sentenced me to a fine — still serious,

04:02 since it was 5000, which for a police officer

04:06 Constitutes, I can assure you,

04:14 several months’ salary. It’s not nothing.

04:18 As a result of my action I was sentenced. Justice determined that

04:22 I was guilty of “incitement to hatred or discrimination

04:26 towards a community of people because of their belonging to the Moslem faith”.

04:30 Voilà, exactly the crime I was sentenced for.

04:34 The court was of the opinion that the fine of €5,000

04:38 that I just mentioned wasn’t enough, and

04:42 they decided to appeal. So I had to appear again before a criminal court.

04:46 ‘The offending items’ — In my publications I was addressing

04:50 Moslem extremists and Islamo-terrorists in general

04:54 because it wasn’t Mr Al-Baghdadi — of course — who beheaded

04:58 Hervé Gourdel! It was other people, who wanted, by the way, in this way

05:02 to swear allegiance to him[Al-Baghdadi]. We are in a war against him since the attacks

05:06 perpetrated on the French soil, and not since attacks against our citizens abroad,

05:10 As in the case of Hervé Gourdel, and I might have reacted a little early. I’m hoping that

05:18 if I had published the same type of content today, perhaps I wouldn’t be sent before a criminal court.

05:26 In the first instance the reason that legitimized my sentence

05:30 it was the fact that the posts taken in their entirety

05:34 that would constitute the well-known offense

05:38 for which I was sentenced. A little strange, but…

05:42 And in appeal it was

05:47 determined that I had

05:51 in my posts

05:55 designated the Islamists, but because

05:59 the Islamists were part of the Moslem community,

06:03 it was an element of the offence.

06:07 I was accused of stigmatizing an imam

06:11 by showing the picture of Mr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, as a target.

06:19 The director of the department of public security of Rhone region told me clearly:

06:23 “Aren’t you ashamed of stigmatizing an imam?”… There are two possibilities: either he doesn’t know

06:28 who this is, and he might want to do his homework before putting an officer before

06:32 a disciplinary council, or he wasn’t ignorant, and then it’s even worse; it means that he considers

06:38 Al-Baghdadi and Islamists the same as an imam of the neighborhood; it’s completely insane!

06:43 The court of appeals of Lyon decided that I would have a mention in my criminal record,

06:47 which means de facto, and automatically, my being removed from the national police force.

06:51 And I was under impression that the arguments were,

06:55 I would say, political rather than judicial.

06:59 The prosecutor in Lyon had estimated, that it was a good idea

07:03 to put this man before a criminal court.

07:07 Mr Jallamion was prosecuted for seven controversial pictures.

07:11 Of those seven, before the criminal court,

07:15 we got two acquittals; before the appeals court in Lyon

07:19 we got the third acquittal. Those three acquittals are very symptomatic.

07:23 In fact, especially for one of them, because Mr Jallamion had shared

07:27 an existing picture from Valeurs Actuelles,

07:31 the picture of a veiled Marianne [French symbol]

07:35 draped in blue, white and red, pointing out: no to the Islamisation of France!

07:39 The Criminal Court didn’t think they had to release Mr Jallamion.

07:44 The appeals court in Lyon, in turn, did release my client

07:48 and it’s rather significant, in fact, of an

07:52 absolutely objective approach to the situation. It’s true that that Valeurs Actuelles,

07:57 which had earlier published the same picture,

08:00 were sentenced as well by the criminal court.

08:04 Whatever the story, my lawyer, Gabriel Bursini and I considered

08:08 that there was material to file cassation.

08:16 We have, of course as a result to a decision of the court of appeals of Lyon,

08:20 decided to file for cassation. When you know a man, after all,

08:24 it’s basically necessary that all the elements that constitute the offence are met;

08:28 and we believe that for the others, who tried to prevent the sentencing, these elements aren’t met.

08:36 The consequences of the sentencing.

08:40 I had to leave everything: my family, my child, my friends, in order to

08:44 try to find a level of life that would correspond to my new situation.

08:48 The attack.

08:52 As a result I’m often coming to visit my friends and family. And that was the case on

08:56 April 27th, when I spent the evening in the house of one of my colleagues.

09:00 And when I was leaving his house in order to go to my vehicle

09:04 that was parked a couple of dozen feet away, I was in fact attacked by several individuals, who

09:12 hit me in the back from behind, threw me to the ground,

09:16 and who immediately struck me in the face.

09:20 It lasts a couple of seconds, until a driver

09:24 stops, lowers his window,

09:28 saying that he would call the police,

09:33 which he did right away. There were insults

09:37 in French, but with a strong Maghrebin accent.

09:41 And as a result the driver called the fire brigade

09:45 and the police. The firemen

09:49 and the police came, and I was brought

09:53 directly to the ER, where I was diagnosed

09:57 with several fractures in my face, complicated displaced fractures,

10:01 that of course weren’t

10:05 the result of blows delivered by bare fists. So they probably used an object,

10:13 probably a knuckle-duster.

10:17 The above is the list of extensive injuries sustained by Sebastien Jallamion to his face.

10:29 Concerning the severity of my injuries: they required hospitalisation

10:33 at first, a temporary incapacity for working.

10:37 That that tells you about the severity of the injuries.

10:41 [unintelligible] I have three pieces of metal

10:45 inserted in my face, in order to —

10:49 a week ago in fact, in order to

10:53 fix my face. I lost three teeth as well in the attack.

10:57 If all goes well, I’ll find my normal life again,

11:01 a human face, which is already the case.

11:05 I insist on thanking the surgeons who operated on me, for their great professionalism.

11:09 In the second case of what had happened

11:13 to Mr Jallamion April 21st, I only can deplore the savage attack

11:17 that was perpetrated by people who are savages.

11:21 Case Jallamion: is it becoming a matter of state?

11:25 The police officers who intervened

11:29 on the spot were my long-time colleagues. They wrote down my name,

11:34 asked the first questions; it’s the departure point for a judicial investigation.

11:39 It is customary in the case of a violent felony to interview the victim;

11:46 It is what we call ‘filing a complaint’; two possibilities:

11:50 either the victim is able to go the police station,

11:54 in which case he or she does it, is encouraged to do it, as quickly as possible,

11:58 or it’s not the case, and a police crew or gendarmes are sent

12:02 to the hospital where the victim is being treated in order to interview him,

12:06 with the permission of the doctor. In my case there was no interview in the hospital,

12:14 there was no police team who wanted to take my complaint, and when I went back home,

12:22 waiting for my surgery, I found out that there was

12:26 no record, no minutes of my case. I had to file a complaint

12:30 on my own, at the gendarmerie in my neighborhood; and it is customary,

12:34 when a police officer becomes the victim of an attack, whether he’s working or not,

12:38 to inform the Interior Ministry right away,

12:42 through a telex, an internal communication,

12:46 and it wasn’t done. It’s completely unusual and

12:50 I refuse to believe for a single second in the

12:54 incapacity of my colleagues to do their jobs,

12:58 especially when it’s about one of their own. There must be something fishy in it. By the way, I heard

13:06 that light should be shed on that dysfunction that is causing a number of questions.

13:10 We could absolutely consider that instructions were given

13:14 in order to prevent the investigation,

13:18 and as a result delay the identification of the perpetrators.

13:22 Irregularities? Derelictions? Coincidences? Or “higher” orders, extremely serious in that case?

13:26 Not only it is extremely serious, but is puts me in a situation

13:30 where the perpetrators are still free and we don’t know their motives.

13:34 I expect the investigation to discover

13:38 the motives of those people. Did they act

13:42 randomly, or was I targeted?

13:47 Those are the questions that need to be answered, and only the investigation

13:51 that will allow their identification and their arrest will bring the answers to those questions.

13:55 So the fact that investigation didn’t start when it was supposed to

13:59 is delaying their identification and the answers to those questions.

14:03 There’s a possibility that those individuals could

14:07 eventually finish their job, and I want to point out that I don’t have any protection.

14:11 What is also symptomatic,

14:15 are all the derelictions that occurred, I think,

14:19 within the national police. What was accomplished by

14:23 the police between April 27th and May 4th?

14:27 I think nothing was accomplished. And I think,

14:31 that the felony investigation was dead; completely dead.

14:35 Well, today we have the right to demand

14:39 of the director of the department of the public security

14:43 of the Rhone region to explain to us why

14:47 nothing happened between April 27th and May 4th.

14:51 Now we are waiting for the results of the preliminary investigation

14:55 that started May 4th, and we hope above all that we’ll find

14:59 the perpetrators of this savage attack.

15:03 There was an administrative funeral for Sebastien Jallamion;

15:07 they perhaps also wanted his physical funeral.

15:11 There something completely abnormal about this case.

15:15 I’m afraid that in was done on purpose,

15:19 not by my colleagues, who, I know,

15:23 support me in great numbers,

15:27 but probably by that hierarchy that I was talking about,

15:31 and to whom I owe that judiciary and administrative harassment.