Six police officers are facing manslaughter charges, in a Swiss court case that opened on Monday, over the death of a 39-year-old Nigerian.<\/p>\n
The Nigerian national Mike Ben Peter died from a heart attack after he was pinned, face-down, for several minutes during his arrest, in a case echoing the 2020 killing of George Floyd in the United States.<\/p>\n
But, there is no footage of the incident leading to Ben Peter\u2019s death, unlike in the George Floyd case, where his final moments were captured in a video that was shared and sparked worldwide protest.<\/p>\n
While in the US, Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in 2021 based on cellphone footage showing him kneeling on Floyd\u2019s neck, Ben Peter\u2019s death in 2018 received little attention beyond the western Swiss city where it occurred, which saw a small-scale demonstration, reported France 24.<\/p>\n
The officers, whose identities remained undisclosed due to Swiss privacy laws, face charges of \u201chomicide by neglect\u201d before a Lausanne criminal court. They all contest the charges and will seek acquittal, their lawyers said.<\/p>\n
The case is one of four where Black men have died during police interventions in Vaud canton since 2016. They have sparked protests and calls for reforms.<\/p>\n
A group of UN experts said last year that Switzerland has systemic racism issues in a report that raised serious concerns about \u201cexcessive use of force and the expectation of impunity by police\u201d and cited this case. A government-mandated study released since then admitted the problem was structural and said measures had so far been insufficient.<\/p>\n
Simon Ntah, the lawyer for the family, said he was not hopeful for a ruling against the officers, who face a maximum prison sentence of three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as there isn\u2019t a mechanism for independent investigations against the police we are stuck with the same problems,\u201d he said, complaining about how the same public prosecutor who works with police on other criminal cases is placed in charge of cases like this one.<\/p>\n
The public prosecutor\u2019s office declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The indictment showed that Ben Peter drew the attention of officers during a Lausanne drug patrol after he collected a bag later shown to contain marijuana.<\/p>\n
He did not comply with police requests and the officers used pepper spray and knee kicks to the ribs and crotch to handcuff him on the ground, it showed. He continued to struggle as he was held face-down by several officers for three minutes, it said, until they noticed he appeared unconscious.<\/p>\n
The indictment said that Ben Peter was later pronounced dead after a heart attack with multiple causes, including the fact that he was held on his stomach and subjected to stress and his obesity.<\/p>\n
Six police officers are facing manslaughter charges, in a Swiss court case that opened on Monday, over the death of a 39-year-old Nigerian. The Nigerian national Mike Ben Peter died…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":105380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-news"],"yoast_head":"\n