Officers who beat a man with a telescopic baton during a brutal arrest, leaving him with life-changing anal injuries, are on trial in France: the case sparked angry protests in Paris

Three police officers who beat a man with a telescopic baton during a brutal arrest, leaving him with life-changing anal injuries, are on trial in France today.

Theodore Luhaka, 28, was arrested in 2017 at the age of 22 in the Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, where he claims he was raped with a baton, beaten, suffering injuries to his head and face and drenched in tear gas .

A 2019 medical report found that his injuries require lifelong treatment.

One of the police officers, Marc-Antoine Castelain, who stopped Luhaka for an identity check, is accused of beating Luhaka with a folding baton.

The young man walked away from the incident with serious anal injuries that left him with a colostomy and a four-inch cut in his colon.

Castelain was accused of raping Luhaka with the baton, but police said the 22-year-old was accidentally raped after his pants “slid down on their own” when he was hit in the back. Those charges of rape have now been dropped in the case that led to heavy protests in Paris at the time.

Theo, who has no criminal record, spent weeks in hospital after his ordeal. He was visited by then-President Francois Hollande, who promised that justice would be done

“The blow I gave was in accordance with police rules and legitimate,” 34-year-old Castelain told the court in the Paris suburb of Bobigny today.

He said Luhaka’s injury was “terrible” and that he thought about it every day.

As he looked at Luhaka in the courtroom, he said he expressed his “condolences.”

Together with fellow officer Jeremy Dulin, who is 42, Castelain is accused of aggravated violence committed in a group, by members of the security forces and with a weapon.

Another officer, Tony Hochart, 31, is charged with assault aggravated by two factors. Charges against a fourth police officer who was present were dropped, and the rape charge initially filed against Castelain was also dropped.

Security camera footage from the end of Luhaka’s arrest on February 2, 2017 shows four officers surrounding him as he lies on the ground, before he appears to be standing upright with his pants pulled down.

More footage shows officers taking the young man, who is limping and has lost one shoe, to a police car before putting him in the back seat.

Luhaka had to undergo emergency surgery and stay in hospital for two weeks after the incident, while he was declared unfit for work for 60 days.

Luhaka said he left his home and was in the middle of a police ID check targeting drug dealers. He claimed that during the arrest he was raped with a baton, racially abused, spat at and hit around the genitals.

Frenchman Theo Luhaka (right), 28, arrives on Tuesday to attend the first day of the trial of three Seine-Saint-Denis police officers at the Assize Court in Bobigny, near Paris.

Theo Luhaka (R), 28, looks at his lawyer Antoine Vey (L) as he arrives to attend the first day of the trial of three Seine-Saint-Denis police officers on Tuesday

Thibault de Montbrial (C), lawyer for three police officers from Seine-Saint-Denis, arrives at the Assize Court in Bobigny, near Paris, on Tuesday

He claims Caselain pulled down his pants and raped him with a bat, a charge that has been dropped.

“I fell on my stomach, I had no strength left,” Luhaka said in 2017 about the brutal arrest. He claimed he was sprayed with tear gas around the head and in the mouth before being hit over the head.

In 2017, Luhaka’s sister Eleanor said her brother was “not the same” after his arrest, saying he barely slept in the months that followed.

Speaking about Theo’s wounds, which included a four-inch cut to his colon, Eleanor said: ‘He is still urinating through a hole in his stomach into a bag.’

Defense attorneys described the force used during the arrest as legitimate.

“The simple fact of saying that this violence is legitimate is very difficult to hear,” said Luhaka’s lawyer Antoine Vey. “We begin the process with some trepidation, because we know that it is always very complicated for the justice system to evaluate police officers.”

Castelain faces a 15-year prison sentence if convicted, Dulin faces 10 years and Hochart faces seven years. A ruling is expected on January 19.

Luhaka’s gruesome arrest sparked waves of national protest from Paris to Brittany, Calais and Normandy when then-president François Hollande visited his hospital bedside.

Hollande said shortly after visiting Luhaka at his bedside that he had “responded with dignity and responsibility” and trusted that justice would be done.