Criminal charges dropped against Swiss police officers accused of killing a black man

A modified Avenue Sainte-Luce sign is photographed on the sidelines of a demonstration in tribute to Mike Ben Peter and against racism on March 1, 2023 in Lausanne. Keystone

The Public Prosecutor's Office of canton Vaud has dropped charges against six white police officers linked to the death of a black man in Lausanne in 2018.

The officers had been accused of “homicide through negligence” over the death of Mike Ben Peter, a 39-year-old Nigerian who suffered a fatal heart attack after being belly tackled by the officers.

Prosecutor Laurent Maye believes they should be acquitted and dropped the charge on Monday, saying there was no “causal link” between the forceful arrest and the heart attack.

Simon Ntah, the lawyer for Ben Peter’s family, had told the court that it was an “insult to intelligence” to consider the death an accident, according to Reuters.

The death of Ben Peter has drawn comparisons to the one of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by a police officer who knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes while conducting an arrest. 

Floyd’s death fueled the Black Lives Matter movement confronting historical and systemic racism in the United States and beyond. 

Last year, United Nations experts issued a report External linkstating Switzerland had a serious systemic problem with racism against people of African descent. Bern disagrees with that assessment. 

This article was corrected on July 13, 2023. It previously stated that “The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland” had dropped the charges. It should read “The Public Prosecutor’s Office of canton Vaud…”