LAUSANNE, Switzerland – A Swiss court case opens on Monday, June 12, 2023, with six police officers facing homicide charges for the 2018 death of a Black man, Mike Ben Peter, a 39-year-old Nigerian.
He died from a heart attack following his arrest, during which he was pinned facedown for several minutes.
The officers, whose names have not been released due to Swiss privacy laws, are charged with “homicide by neglect” and will face the Lausanne criminal court.
They all deny the charges and will seek acquittal, according to their lawyers.
The case bears similarities to the May 2020 killing of George Floyd in the United States and is one of four instances where Black men have died during police interventions in the canton of Vaud since 2016.
These incidents have led to protests and calls for reforms. However, unlike Floyd’s case, there is no video footage of the incident that allegedly led to Ben Peter’s death.
Last year, a group of United Nations experts reported systemic racism in Switzerland, citing concerns about “excessive use of force and the expectation of impunity by police”.
A government-mandated study confirmed that the problem was structural and that the measures taken so far were inadequate.
Simon Ntah, the family’s lawyer, expressed scepticism about a ruling against the officers, who face a maximum prison sentence of three years.
He criticised the current system, where the same public prosecutor who works with the police on other criminal cases is also in charge of cases like this one.
According to the indictment, during a drug patrol in Lausanne, Ben Peter attracted the attention of officers when he collected a bag found to contain marijuana.
When he didn’t comply with police instructions, the officers used pepper spray and knee kicks to handcuff him on the ground.
Several officers then held him facedown for three minutes until they realised he appeared unconscious.
Ben Peter was later pronounced dead due to a heart attack, with multiple causes cited, including being held on his stomach and subjected to stress.
