Judges free police officer suspected in killing of teen in suburban Paris that set off French riots

PARIS (AP) — A police officer being investigated in the killing last summer of a 17-year-old of North African origin that touched off riots around France was freed from jail Wednesday while the investigation continues.

The prosecutor’s office in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where 17-year-old Nahel Marzouk was fatally shot, said that magistrates concluded that continued detention of the motorcycle officer “no longer fulfills the legal criteria” for which he was held.

The officer, who has been identified only as Floran M., was jailed June 29, two days after Nahel was killed.

The teenager was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Nanterre. Video showed two officers at the window of the Mercedes the youth was driving, one with his gun pointed at the teenager. As the car pulled forward, the officer fired once through the windshield.

The officer was handed a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide, which means there must be further investigation before an eventual decision to put him on trial.

The judges on Wednesday ordered the police officer to stay out of Nanterre, forbade him from possessing a weapon or having contact with witnesses or civil parties in the case, the prosecutor’s office said. He must regularly report to authorities.

Lawyers for the officer had made pleas in the past for their clients’ release, but all were turned down until a new demand was lodged a week ago.

As rioting continued, a far right figure, Jean Messiha, launched a divisive Gofundme campaign to help the jailed policeman’s family, which took in more than 1.5 million euros ($1.63 million at the time) within days before he closed it. Critics of the effort maintained that it was meant to spread a message of hate and pit the far right against residents of poor suburbs with a high rate of people of immigrant origin.

Rioting was driven by a mainly teenage backlash in the suburbs and urban housing projects against a French state that many young people with immigrant roots say routinely discriminates against them.