Saturday, September 18, 2010

GENDARME ACQUITED

French Gypsies tussle with police after gendarme acquitted in slaying that angered community


By The Associated Press (CP)
PARIS — A group of angry French Gypsies have tussled with police after a gendarme was acquitted in the slaying of a man from their community.

No one appeared injured in the incident in the town of Draguignan in southern France.

The gendarme had been accused of shooting 27-year-old Joseph Guerdner to death in 2008 after Guerdner fled police custody. A Draguignan court acquitted the gendarme Friday.

French TV showed one screaming woman in the crowd slapping a policeman in the face outside the courthouse.

Guerdner was from a community of itinerant Gypsy communities with roots in France reaching back centuries.

It comes at the time when President Nicolas Sarkozy has been stepping up evacuations of camps of French Gypsies as well as expelling as immigrant Roma from eastern Europe.

The Canadian Press.

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