The Criminal Court of Seine-Saint-Denis has sentenced three police officers implicated in the assault of Theo Luhaka during his arrest to suspended imprisonment ranging from three months to one year, according to local news outlet BFMTV. He was found guilty of voluntary violence, but there was not enough evidence of a permanent infirmity caused by the blow inflicted by the baton. As a result, he received a one year suspended jail sentence, with a five-year ban to exercise his functions as public police and on carrying a weapon.
The two other officers were charged with voluntary violence. They each received a suspended three months jail sentence. The case of Luhaka has opened a debate in France regarding police violence, mainly against Black and Arab people, and has since become a symbol of the struggle against it.
The debate around police violence in the country intensified when year-old North-African descent Nahel Merzouk was fatally shot in June , sparking violent protests in Nanterre. On January 31, , the Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was adopted, creating six internal republics. The constitution, modeled on that of the Soviet Union, would serve as the supreme law of Yugoslavia throughout the Cold War before the union dissolved in Gunpowder Plot participant Guy Fawkes was hanged, drawn, and quartered on January 31, for attempting to blow up the British House of Lords with kegs of gunpowder during the State Opening of Parliament.
The plot famously failed after the Lords was searched. It is commemorated to this day on November 5, known as "Guy Fawkes Night. Yugoslavia constitution adopted. Gunpowder Plot participant Guy Fawkes hanged, drawn, and quartered.
