In Guadeloupe, the controversy aroused by the Claude Jean-Pierre affair continues to swell. Since the death, on December 3, 2020, of this 67-year-old retiree, who had succumbed to the serious trauma suffered during a gendarmerie check in his town of Deshaies, emotion is strong in the archipelago. It gave way to indignation when the public prosecutor of Basse-Terre, Xavier Sicot, requested, on February 5, a dismissal in the context of the judicial investigation opened against X for “involuntary homicide” . Two events are scheduled for Friday, March 10 in Basse-Terre. A thousand people have already demonstrated on Friday March 3 in the streets of Pointe-à-Pitre.
Over the past three weeks, elected officials, personalities, citizens had anticipated the conclusions of the prosecution and demanded justice for the family of « Klodo », nickname affectionately given to the former mason by his relatives. In a press release dated February 27, the four deputies and three senators of Guadeloupe noted the“excitement” and the“popular misunderstanding” prompted by the indictment. reaffirming “their confidence in the judicial system”the seven parliamentarians say they wish “that the request of the family of Claude Jean-Pierre be heard” et “that justice is exercised in a serene climate and of mutual trust”.
“How the French Republic (…) can she show such disregard for justice? », Harry Roselmack got carried away on his Instagram account a few days earlier. Drawing a parallel with the George Floyd affair, the star journalist denounced “an absolute denial of justice”.
Double neck fracture
It was the daughter of the victim who publicized the conclusions of the prosecution. “My father, Claude Jean-Pierre, 67, [est] died following a police check (…). And today, a prosecutor tells us that nothing happened”, asserts Fatia Alcabelard in a short video broadcast on February 17 on social networks. The 40-year-old leads with her companion, Christophe Sinnan, a fight now known to all Guadeloupeans under the slogan ” Justice for Klodo » (« Justice pour Klodo »).
At the wheel of his Renault Express, the retiree is checked by two gendarmes, on November 21, 2020, in the center of the town of Deshaies, a locality of 4,000 inhabitants in the north of the island of Basse-Terre. A control that the prosecutor Xavier Sicot justified, during a press conference organized two months later, by the “hesitant driving” of the motorist: the sexagenarian, “obviously alcoholic”got out of the vehicle “resisting” before collapsing to the ground, according to the magistrate. Evacuated to the Guadeloupe University Hospital, in Pointe-à-Pitre, Claude Jean-Pierre, his face swollen with bruises, was placed in an artificial coma. Medical examinations establish that he suffers from a double fracture of the cervical, including one compressing the spinal cord. He died after ten days in intensive care, and after an operation.
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