The Stade de France video surveillance images had to be deleted for an investigation to be opened into facts for which they would have been very useful. A second investigation was actually opened on Friday to investigate the facts of theft, aggravated theft and aggravated violence, we learned. This investigation was opened to deal with complaints made by foreign supporters who came for the Champions League final at the end of May.
The only judicial investigation opened so far concerned the alleged trafficking of counterfeit tickets for the Champions League final and therefore did not require the exploitation of video surveillance. As part of this new investigation entrusted to the Saint-Denis police station, “several legal requisitions have been sent to recover video protection images”, in particular the “video protection device of the police headquarters surrounding the Stade de France”, specified the floor.
Before the Senate on Thursday, an official of the French Federation explained that the CCTV images of the Stade de France – which he described as “very violent” – had been automatically deleted after 7 days since there was no had no requisition of justice. “It means that images that you consider very violent existed and that there was no request from the authorities, in particular from the prefecture. (…) There is evidence that has been destroyed by, at least, incompetence, ”deplored the senator of David Assouline.
Le Parisien learned this Friday that the video surveillance images of the RATP (for line 13 of the metro) and the SNCF (for the RER B and the RER D) had also been deleted after 72 hours for the same reason, when they could have been useful to shed light on what precisely happened around the Stade de France on May 28. “It’s incomprehensible, all this is done in time normally”, testified to the Parisian a police source.
Requisitions made Thursday evening
Attacked since the events, the Paris police headquarters had explained Thursday evening on Twitter that the images in its possession “are obviously always available to justice, within the framework of requisitions drawn up in a criminal investigation”, calling not to confuse “police images with images from a private operator”. “We are trying to see if it is possible to restore the images” of the operator of the Stade de France, declared the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, on the sidelines of a visit to Verson, in the Calvados district. The police responsible for investigating the counterfeit notes sent a requisition Thursday evening to obtain the images from the police headquarters.
Since Monday, foreign supporters of Liverpool and Real can file a complaint with the French courts via a dedicated form available on the websites of the French embassies in the United Kingdom and Spain. The form must then be sent by post to the public prosecutor of Bobigny, on which the Stade de France depends. For the time being, the authorities have not transmitted the number of complaints received via this system.