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POLICE

Thirty officers suspended in Marseille scandal

The number of Marseille police suspected of involvement in corruption rose to 30 Monday following the suspension of an additional 18 officers from a unit that operated in the toughest zones of the southern French city.

Published: 8 October 2012 17:00 CEST
Thirty officers suspended in Marseille scandal
Photo: Flickr user YuMaNuMa
The suspension of the 18 follows the indictment of 12 of their colleagues on Friday on charges of extortion and drug dealing.
 
Seven of the initial 12 have been imprisoned pending further investigation while the other five were released on bail.
 
The latest suspensions mean almost half of the 70-strong Anti-Criminial Brigade in northern Marseille are now under investigation in what is beginning to look like one of the most serious cases of police corruption in French history.
 
Most of the officers who have been charged or suspended were arrested last Tuesday. They are suspected of routinely stealing drugs and cash from dealers and of holding on to cigarettes confiscated from illicit sellers.
 
The prosecutor who pushed for action against them told Friday's indictment hearing that there was "overwhelming" proof of their guilt and described the unit they worked for as a "gangrene" in the French police.

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POLICE

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

A Danish court on Thursday gave a two-month suspended prison sentence to a 31-year-old Swede for making a joke about a bomb at Copenhagen's airport this summer.

Published: 5 October 2023 17:11 CEST
Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

In late July, Pontus Wiklund, a handball coach who was accompanying his team to an international competition, said when asked by an airport agent that
a bag of balls he was checking in contained a bomb.

“We think you must have realised that it is more than likely that if you say the word ‘bomb’ in response to what you have in your bag, it will be perceived as a threat,” the judge told Wiklund, according to broadcaster TV2, which was present at the hearing.

The airport terminal was temporarily evacuated, and the coach arrested. He later apologised on his club’s website.

“I completely lost my judgement for a short time and made a joke about something you really shouldn’t joke about, especially in that place,” he said in a statement.

According to the public prosecutor, the fact that Wiklund was joking, as his lawyer noted, did not constitute a mitigating circumstance.

“This is not something we regard with humour in the Danish legal system,” prosecutor Christian Brynning Petersen told the court.

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