Nzoy Commission
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contact@nzoycommission.org
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Pressestatements

Press kit

04.12.2024

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Prosecutor Laurent Maye and the public prosecutor's office are acting as defense in the case of the police officers accused of murder and failure to provide assistance.

Media release from the independent commission to investigate the death of Roger Nzoy Wilhelm

For the independent commission to investigate the death of Roger Nzoy Wilhelm, the public prosecutor's decision to discontinue the proceedings unfortunately comes as little surprise, shocking as it is. The Commission views it as an expression of structural violence and scandalous partiality, as regularly observed in such proceedings.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) emphasizes that thorough investigations are essential in precisely such proceedings in order to make it more difficult for such abuses to occur in the future, to enforce justice, to secure the right to the truth and to uphold the rule of law. The present dismissal of proceedings is likely to result in further police practices going unpunished in which people tend to be classified as dangerous and mistreated solely on the basis of their skin color and their so-called conspicuous behavior (in the present case, the behavior was the result of a vulnerable mental state). Furthermore, it shows that the Vaud public prosecutor's office does not take accountability and other fundamental principles of the rule of law seriously. By closing the investigation into the death of Roger Nzoy, Deputy Attorney General Laurent Maye is preventing a full investigation and is thus responsible for a serious violation of the right to life under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). His biased investigation and the closure order jeopardize public trust in the state's monopoly on the use of force.

Interventions by public officials must be investigated in judicial proceedings to determine whether racist motives played a significant role, as the ECtHR recently emphasized (ECtHR, Wa Baile v. Switzerland of May 20, 2024, applications no. 43868/18 and 25883/21). The ECtHR has previously stated that, in the case of injuries sustained during contact with the police, suspicions of discriminatory acts and motives must be investigated (ECtHR, Salman v. Turkey, 27 June 2002, application no. 21986/93, § 100; ECtHR, Bouyid v. Belgium, application no. 23380/09, § 84).

In the present case, the Independent Commission for the Clarification of the Death of Roger Nzoy Wilhelm considers that Public Prosecutor Laurent Maye has not carried out a sufficient investigation. He has ignored the question of systemic racism and has not investigated whether the intervention of the police officers was also based on elements of racial discrimination.

The dismissal order is evidence of the partiality of the investigation: the public prosecutor would be obliged to base its submissions on a thorough, objective and unbiased analysis of all the relevant facts, but here it is acting as the defense attorney for the accused police officers. The prosecutor acts as an arbitrator, although in the case of alleged killings by state officials, this role falls to the court.

The commission supports the filing of an appeal with the Criminal Appeals Chamber of the Cantonal Court by Nzoy's family and their lawyer. The commission demands that the police officers be brought to justice. It also calls on the Vaud public prosecutor to transfer the case to an authority in another canton in order to comply with international obligations regarding effective and impartial investigations.

The commission can be contacted at the following address for inquiries or suggestions: contact@nzoycommission.org

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