Calls for justice for teenager shot dead by French police two weeks before Nahel

Two weeks before the fatal shooting of Nahel Merzouk by a French police officer during a traffic stop, another teenager, 19-year-old Alhoussein Camara, was shot in similar circumstances in a small town in western France. Unlike Nahel, his death was not captured on film and is only now drawing attention. This is his story.

Alhoussein Camara was shot dead after allegedly refusing to comply with a police traffic stop on 14 June in the small town of Angoulême, southwest France. He was on his way to begin his early morning shift on a supermarket logistics platform.

His case resonates with that of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, shot dead by police in the northern working-class suburb of Nanterre outside Paris on 27 June, which has sparked France's most violent rioting in nearly two decades.

The two teenagers were both young men of colour and in each case the police officers who fired claim they acted in self-defence under a 2017 law.

But Camara was alone in his car and, unlike the Merzouk case, no one was there to film the fatal shooting and post to social media.

"Unfortunately for him there was no camera, no smartphone," says Abdoulaye Kouyaté, a good friend of the teenager who this week set up a support group in Angoulême to push for justice and drum up more interest in what friends and family believe was a police blunder.

"It's a death without pictures," Kouyaté says. And we only have the police officers' version of events.

Late-night traffic stop

The first statement issued by the prosecutor of Angoulême a few hours after the shooting said police had sought to stop the vehicle after they saw it "zigzagging" at around 4:30am. The driver refused to comply, the statement said, there was a chase and another police squad arrived as back up.

Camara allegedly drove into one of the policemen who was standing on the road, injuring him in the knee. The officer took out his weapon and fired at the driver.

Camara's car kept moving, finally swerving into a wall 150 metres away. His death was recorded shortly after, at 4:50am.

Two investigations were opened: one against Camara for refusal to stop and violence with weapons (in this case his car), and the other against the 52-year-old officer for voluntary homicide.

The prosecutor highlighted that Camara had no criminal record. Tests would later find no trace of drugs or alcohol in his system.

Nonetheless, French media reported that the nationalist police union Alliance quickly issued a statement describing the motorist as a “delinquent” who had committed “attempted murder” against officers.

'Always respectful'

Those who knew Camara well are shocked by the circumstances of his death and the way he's been characterised as dangerous.

Born in Guinea in 2003, he arrived in France in 2018 as an unaccompanied minor.

Kouyaté points to the fact the youngster had a residency permit, a steady job, a driving licence, and his car was fully insured. He didn't smoke or drink, and was a practising Muslim.

He had known Camara since he came to France aged 14, joining Angoulême's small but close-knit Guinean community.

“Like many of us, he didn't have any family here,” Kouyaté says. “We played football every Saturday, he was popular, everybody liked him.”

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Camara spent his first years in a care home before getting a cooking qualification, working in a restaurant and then starting his job at the supermarket.

One of his former bosses described him as "hardworking", while the coach at the Leroy football club where he played told local media he had "never caused a problem and was always respectful".

The director of the hostel for young workers where Camara lived was full of praise. "We sometimes have complicated young people, but he was exemplary. If everyone was like him, we'd be out of a job," he told investigative website Mediapart.

Grey areas

Kouyaté and others are struggling to make sense of their friend's death. "There are lots of grey areas, we want the truth about what happened, we want explanations," he told RFI.

For example, it wasn't until 28 June – two weeks after the incident and the day after Merzouk was killed – that the police officer who fired the fatal shot at Camara was charged with voluntary homicide, suspended from duty and forbidden from using weapons.

The prosecutor's statement announcing the development also revealed that the policeman's body camera had "not been sufficiently charged" to film the incident.

Some things don't add up, Kouyaté says.
“The police say it was a chase and Alhoussein refused to stop, but he stuck to his regular route to work, and the police report says he stopped at a red light. If you were in a police chase, why would you stop at a traffic light and take your normal route?” he asks.

He also believes his friend would not have risked getting into trouble with the police given that his residency permit had to be renewed each year.

“He knew that if ever the police stopped him and he didn't comply he could get expelled or sent to prison. So why would he take that risk?"

Family concern

On 29 June, Camara's body was flown back to the Guinean capital of Conakry so his family could lay him to rest.

"He was such a kind young man. His death has marked us all," said his older brother Ibrahim, shortly after the burial.

"Like a lot of Africans, Guineans, he left to help the family, for the family's well-being and his own. For him to end up like that is hard. It's complicated. The only thing we can ask is that justice be done."

The Guinean Minister of Foreign Affairs was at the airport to receive the body and called on France “to do its utmost to investigate the circumstances of [Camara's] death”.

But France's judicial system has been particularly slow to act on the case.

"The family has no information and hasn't been contacted by the French judiciary since 14 June," says their lawyer, Arié Alimi.

On Thursday, Ibrahim Camara was declared a civil party to the case, allowing the family to follow proceedings and get more information.

They want to understand why it took two weeks for the police officer to be charged and an official enquiry opened. "Why wasn't there an immediate judicial information, why wasn't there a quicker indictment?" their lawyer asks.

He also points to "a willingness to dissimulate the truth in cases of police violence and fatal shootings, either by the police or sometimes the judiciary. Of course that worries the family."

Alimi is asking for the case be relocated outside of Angoulême to another jurisdiction where local investigating magistrates would not be familiar with the police officers involved.

'I'm scared'

Of 15 fatal shootings during police traffic stops in France since January 2022, "the vast majority, if not all, were drivers from racial minorities", Alimi tells RFI.

Kouyaté knows from personal experience that as young black men, they are stopped by police more often than their white friends.

"I've often been followed by the police when I'm in my car, for no particular reason. They say 'oh, we're just checking'."

Having seen what happened to his friend, he's even more aware of the danger he could quickly find himself in.

“I'm 33, I have a ten-year residency permit, I have a French wife, my children are French, we all have the same rights.

"But when I leave home for work at 4am or 5am or at 9pm, and I see a police car behind me, I'm scared."

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