On 20 May 2023, police officers in Luxembourg City arrested a drunk man and placed him in a cell to sober up overnight. During this incident, acts of police violence allegedly occurred. To this day, the exact circumstances of what happened remain undisclosed, with neither prosecution nor defence lawyers providing, publicly, much of any details pertinent to the case.
Not only do the four officers stand accused of police violence, but an attempted cover-up is also alleged. It is also necessary to state that the presumption of innocence remains in place until the case is settled.
An examining magistrate decided in July to place three officers in pre-trial detention, while a fourth officer was added shortly thereafter. The officers were first placed in isolation before being moved to a separate prison wing. Three were eventually released at the end of September, and a fourth was released at the beginning of October.
In conversation with RTL, lawyer Fränk Rollinger, who represents one of the defendants, commented on the decision to place the implicated officers in pre-trial detention: “It is simply a safety measure to ensure that the investigation can be done properly and that no evidence is being hidden. ... However, that was done after one or two weeks, so there was no justification for pre-trial detention later on.”
Lawyer Jean-Marie Bauler, who represents another defendant, agrees with this assessment: “The law clearly stipulates the conditions required for ordering pre-trial detention. And those were surely not fulfilled in this case. There is no danger of them trying to escape, same with the evidence tampering... Four of them sat together every day for two months. Somebody has to explain that to me.”
Both lawyers have thus made the case that authorities tried to set an example at the cost of their clients, by keeping them under arrest for an excessive period of time.
When asked for comment, the prosecutor’s office issued the following statement: “In the context of this case, in which four police officers are involved, the investigation phase is still ongoing. This means that new elements can still come to light at any moment. Due to these circumstances, the prosecutor’s office will not make any public comments at this point in time.”
