The French public prosecutor requested on Tuesday a trial before the criminal court for these three civil servants still in office, according to a source close to the case, confirming information from the website Mediapart.
They are now aged 28, 33 and 38.
A fourth officer, a policewoman, placed under the more favourable status of assisted witness, escaped prosecution.
They are accused of involuntary manslaughter in the case of the death of Cédric Chouviat, who died during a tense police arrest in January 2020, while repeating "I'm suffocating"...
It is now up to the investigating judge to decide whether or not to send the police officers to trial.
Emblematic case
Chouviat was a 42-year-old father, and was pinned to the ground in Paris with his motorcycle helmet on his head during a police check, causing him to faint.
According to the indictments, the delivery man was "prevented from freeing himself and then handcuffed behind his back for a minute and a half, without the slightest reaction or check of his integrity by the police officers under investigation.
His up and down leg movements were confirmed by the use of films taken by witnesses.
He was later hospitalised in a critical condition, and declared dead two days later, on 5 January.
The case progressively became emblematic of police violence in France, following revelations from the forensic examination. It showed that, when he was put on the ground and handcuffed by the police, Chouviat said "I'm suffocating" nine times in thirteen seconds, before fainting.
His pleas were similar to the ones of George Floyd, the African-American man who was suffocated in May 2020 by a white police officer in Minneapolis, a tragedy that sparked a huge wave of the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States.
Investigations
Throughout the investigation, the police officers claimed they had believed that Chouviat was "continuously rebelling" against his arrest, they said.
"If we had heard the expression 'I'm suffocating' even once, "we would have stopped," one of the certified in July 2020 before the investigating judge.
Witnesses, on the contrary, interpreted these signs as ones of distress.
Parts of the scene were filmed, showing the police officers continuing their action despite Chouviat's distress.
They were however trained in spotting warning signals, according to the investigators.
For the family's lawyers, "a trial is necessary", but not as requested by the prosecution.
The qualification of involuntary manslaughter is, in this case, "a legal nonsense because it does not reflect the reality of the voluntary nature of the violence suffered", lawyers William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth told the media.
"A strangulation key is in principle voluntary", added Arié Alimi, another lawyer of the family. "If the judge retains the qualification of involuntary manslaughter, the risk of acquittal is very high", he warned.
These accusations are contested by the policemen's lawyers.
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