On Monday, six Swiss police officers appeared in court on charges related to the death of a Black man who had a fatal heart attack while being restrained during an arrest; which one attorney compared the incident to the death of George Floyd in the United States.
In the case of Nigerian man Mike Ben Peter, 39, before a Lausanne criminal court, the officers—who were not identified due to Swiss privacy laws—are accused of “homicide by neglect.”
The case, which shares some similarities with the death of George Floyd in the United States in May 2020, is one of four involving Black men who have died during police interventions in the canton of Vaud since 2016.
As a result, there have been demonstrations and calls for reform.
There is no video of the alleged incident that led to Ben Peter’s death, unlike the murder of Floyd, for which officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder in 2021 in part due to mobile phone footage showing him kneeling on the victim’s neck.
In a report released last year that raised serious concerns about “excessive use of force and the expectation of impunity by police” and mentioned this case, a group of United Nations experts claimed that Switzerland has systemic racism problems.
Since then, a government-mandated study has been published that acknowledged the structural nature of the issue and found that current solutions are insufficient.
The family’s attorney, Simon Ntah, expressed doubt that the officers, who could receive a three-year prison sentence, would be found guilty.
He lamented the fact that the same public prosecutor who collaborates with police on other criminal cases is assigned to handle cases like this, saying, “as long as there isn’t a mechanism for independent investigations against the police we are stuck with the same problems.”
According to the indictment reports, Ben Peter attracted officers’ attention during a Lausanne drug patrol after he picked up a bag that was later discovered to contain marijuana.
He refused to comply with the officers’ requests, and it was evident that they had to handcuff him to the ground while using pepper spray and knee kicks to the crotch and ribs.
He reportedly struggled for three minutes while being held face down by several officers before they noticed he appeared unconscious.
The indictment claimed that Ben Peter’s heart attack, which was later determined to have been caused by a number of factors, including being held on his stomach and being under stress, led to his death.
Source-Aljazeera
