The trial against the alleged murderer of Franck Labois, a police officer dismissed in January 2020 from a van, opens today before the Rhone Assize Court. His alleged killer faces life imprisonment.
Franck Labois, a 45-year-old policeman, was hit by a van during an overnight operation in Bron on the night of January 10-11, 2020.
Police officers were observing criminals in a Volkswagen van as part of an investigation into organized gang thefts. The criminals were therefore about to commit a theft of goods at a motorway rest area on the Isère. Shortly thereafter, police tried to intercept the thieves at the highway exit near Bron with the help of the Operational Support Group (GAO) at Rhône Departmental Security, of which Franck Labois was a member.
While police vehicles are positioned to stop the van, the driver then rushes to Franck Labois. Weapon in hand, the policeman gives the order to stop the vehicle, without success. “He did not shoot while he was in self-defense, and he died,” said Me Jean-François Barre, who represents the mother and brothers of the deceased policeman, civil parties in the trial.
The policeman’s family is hoping for an explanation, and to understand “why he didn’t stop, why he preferred to kill a man rather than surrender to the few cans of detergent he had in the truck,” asks the lawyer.
Dragged about twenty meters from the van, Franck Labois was seriously injured. He died of his injuries two days later. He was posthumously awarded the insignia of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur and was elevated to the rank of captain. A few days later, the alleged driver was arrested and charged with voluntary homicide. He admitted he was the driverbut not for intending to kill the policeman.
This Monday, at the opening of the trial, his colleagues at the GAO will ask to become civil parties “because they are suffering” and to consider themselves victims in the file, says lawyer Laurent-Franck Liénard.
The accused, in a situation of criminal recidivism, incurs a life sentence.
