Violence after OL-Strasbourg: Two Lyon supporters sentenced to prison

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AFP

Published 04/04/2023 at 11:45 GMT

The Lyon Criminal Court on Monday sentenced a 22-year-old student to 10 months’ imprisonment, including four months suspended, after the incidents that occurred after OL’s defeat against Strasbourg in mid-January. Suspected of the beating of a CRS, he admitted at the hearing on March 13 to having struck him, the prosecution and Me Hervé Banbanaste, defender of one of the defendants, reported to AFP.

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A second youth was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, four of which were suspended, and two others to eight months’ imprisonment. Firm sentences will be carried out under an electronic bracelet. The four men were also sentenced to a fine of 1,500 euros each, as well as a two-year stadium ban with the obligation to report to a police department during the women’s and men’s matches of Olympique Lyonnais.

“There is a desire on the part of the prosecution services to respond to violence in the stadiums with zero tolerance“, commented Me Banbanaste, considering that these convictions were “proportionate and consistent with case law“. On January 14, about thirty minutes after the end of a stormy match concluded by a defeat for OL (2-1) under the whistles of the ultras, “several dozen” of supporters, most of them with their faces concealed, entered a corridor of the stadium, according to the Lyon prosecution.

They “beat the police”

Stopped by the police, they then launched “many objects“in their direction, and some have”beat the police“. The confrontation lasted several minutes. The incidents left 13 police officers injured. A CRS, who had fallen after a blow to the face, was “knocked down by several people“.

A total of 22 people were arrested after a flagrant investigation. Four had been exonerated, twelve identified as present during the incidents but without any act of violence being attributed to them. Among the six defendants placed under judicial supervision on February 3, two other young people had chosen an appearance on prior admission of guilt and were sentenced to five months in prison suspended and a stadium ban with score on match nights.