On Saturday evening, October 1st, around 10:45 pm, three gendarmes from the Hayange Motorized Brigade ensure a classic check on the Luxembourg border. They are posted in Contz-les-Bains.
A motorist is invited to step aside. He runs. But when the cop asks for his papers, he overtakes the first and accelerates. Except the soldier put his arm through the window frame. He gets stuck for several meters, shouts, invites the driver to stop … before falling. The gendarmes chase the fugitive who stops a few kilometers further on, in Luxembourg. The Grand Ducal police arrive, the vehicle is searched, 53 g of cannabis resin are found.
“I panicked, I sincerely regret it”
Three days later, the driver is in his shoes. “I panicked, I sincerely regret it. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I didn’t realize I was dragging the gentleman », he promises, confronting the three gendarmes who came to testify at the trial.
The 31-year-old boy was presented on Tuesday before the Thionville Criminal Court, in an immediate appearance. The gravity of the facts motivated this accelerated procedure. Because the accused is not a great bandit. In 2019 he has three convictions for old drug use and narcotic driving, which resulted in his driving license suspension in particular. But justice now hits hard when it comes to a refusal to obey.
In jail, you live
The topic is topical. “There is no day in which violence is not committed against a gendarme, without a refusal to obey,” insists the deputy prosecutor of Thionville Valérie Kondratuk. “The law has changed for these reasons. Indeed, as expected the highway code (article 233-1) from January , non-compliance is considered a separate crime. The sentence pronounced is no longer confused with that of the other crimes committed. It accumulates.
In the case of the driver arrested on Saturday evening in Contz, he receives four months’ imprisonment for the sole refusal to comply. Added to this are the two years of imprisonment, of which nine months suspended, for the violence committed against the gendarme.
The court also orders the revocation of a previous sentence suspended for one month, dated 2019. Finally, it imposes two penalties for lack of insurance and driving without a license. The defendant, Steven Carretero, went to jail as soon as the sentence was handed down. In total, he takes twenty months in prison. He has ten days to appeal.
