According to World Radio Swiss, a police officer in the canton of Vaud accused of abusing his authority is to be re-tried, following claims he was acquitted thanks to his colleagues committing perjury. The case had been dismissed, but will now be fully re-investigated.

The substance of the case dates back to New Year’s Eve, 2006. A 16-year-old Eritrean man was stopped on two separate occasions by police in Lausanne.

He claims that on the second occasion, a patrol officer drenched him in pepper spray, and abandoned him near a forest. The man from Eritrea says his attempts to lodge a complaint later that night were rejected.

The case eventually went to court, and the policeman was acquitted, based on testimony by his colleagues. Some months later, however, a fellow officer who’d left the force accused those colleagues of lying under oath, to cover up police brutality. Those accusations are now being investigated, and the previous acquittal has been cancelled.

Now the case will be brought before a higher court, which should investigate what happened on the New Year’s Eve day in 2006. Bringing the case to the next level of courts should assure that justice is spoken and that the risk of fraud within the case is abolished.

The police force or so called “Gendarmerie” from the canton Vaud has already been involved in similar incidents in the past. For example during the G8 Summit in 2003 two demonstrators, were nearly killed by police officers from the canton Vaud.

Related posts:

1. Eritrea: 14-Year-Old Eritrean Boy Undergoes Operation in Germany