At the wrong place, at the wrong time?
A woman says the
police arrested her and seized her phone without good reason before stripping
her naked at the police station.
A distraught woman
contacted this newspaper on Wednesday to complain about an incident that
happened to her last Friday at Mont Fleuri. She says she had stepped out of her
workplace to make a phone call to her child when two police officers arrested
her. They seized her cellphone and ID card and she still had not gotten them
back by the time she contacted this newspaper.
“For no reason, they took my phone and told me to go with
them to the police station,” the woman who requested anonymity told this newspaper.
The incident, she said, happened at around 2pm in Mont Fleuri when the two
officers arrested her under suspicion that she was “warning criminals that the
police were on their way”. The woman recounted that she later found out that
there had been stolen army weapons and the police were pursuing suspects who
they believed were at Mont Fleuri.
The woman was then
taken to the police station where she said she was “questioned like a criminal”
adding that “I have never been involved in any illegal activity.” She further
told us that a female officer stripped her naked and searched her at the Mont
Fleuri police station. After that, her phone and ID card were seized and they
still haven’t been returned to her.
“This is normal procedure,” police spokesperson Jean
Toussaint told TODAY. He added that “her ID card will surely be returned to her
very soon but the phone will remain with the police until all suspicions have
been cleared.” He also said that during such investigations, strict formalities
were followed which would explain why the phone was seized. “Eventually the
phone will be returned because it is her property,” said Mr. Toussaint. He
nonetheless said that that there was no investigation into stolen army weapons
contrarily to what the woman claimed. It is unknown at this point why the
police arrested the woman and seized her phone.
With regards to the
way the police treated the woman, Jean Toussaint says “all this is part of
procedure.” The woman nonetheless said that she was still in “a state of
shock”.
Source:Today
