French police officers receive suspended sentences for brutal assault on Théo Luhaka

Three French police officers have been given suspended prison sentences for assaulting a black man with a baton in a suburb of Paris. The incident occurred during a stop-and-search in Aulnay-sous-Bois in February 2017, leaving Théo Luhaka with irreversible anal injuries. Luhaka, who was 22 years old at the time, also claimed he was racially abused and spat at during the attack. The case caused widespread outrage and protests in housing estates across Paris. Officer Marc-Antoine Castelain received a 12-month suspended sentence for the truncheon blow that caused serious injury to Luhaka, while Jeremie Dulin and Tony Hochart were each given three-month suspended sentences for intentional violence. Luhaka described the attack in court as feeling like rape and video footage of the assault, which went viral on social media, prompted François Hollande, the then-president, to visit Luhaka in the hospital. Luhaka, who had aspirations of becoming a professional footballer, was unarmed and had no criminal record at the time of the attack. He encountered the police identity check by chance while leaving his house, which escalated into a violent encounter where he was set upon by four officers. CCTV footage showed him being beaten for eight minutes, and he claimed that one officer pulled down his trousers and assaulted him with a truncheon. He was then taken to the police station, where he was further racially abused. Initially, the injuries to his anus were investigated as rape. Prosecutors had asked for a three-year suspended sentence for Castelain and suspended sentences of six and three months for Dulin and Hochart, respectively. The case against a fourth officer was dropped.