Following the ruling of the 21st of January 2016, the Chambéry Court of Appeal accepted the claim for provisional compensations by heirs of a journalist killed in the line of duty in a war zone.The Guarantee Fund for Victims of Terrorism and Other Offences objected that firstly, there was insufficient evidence of the existence of a criminal offence and, secondly, that the events entering a political context make Article 706-3 of the Criminal Procedure Code inapplicable. The Chambéry Court of Appeal rejected the arguments of the Guarantee Fund and accepted those of the claimants, considering that “Article 706-3 of the Criminal Procedure Code does not require proof of a criminal offence but only its material elements” and that “the fact that a shooter hit in combat a journalist who was not involved, cannot be characterized as a political offence”. The claimants obtained respectively a provision of 25,000 and 12,000 euros on account of moral damage.
They were represented by Mr. François Géry.
