Held by the Neck for Over a Minute While He Kept Saying He Could Not Breathe: Six Police Officers on Trial in Ljubljana

Two years after the death of 37-year-old Armin Dzutovic in Ljubljana, the footage from the police cameras has been played in the courtroom. Seven minutes of material that is now the key evidence against six police officers.

The timeline is short. Police were called after Dzutovic threw chairs on the terrace of a bar and struck a Dutch tourist. The footage shows that he initially complied with the orders. When the officers told him he was going to be handcuffed, he panicked and tried to run. That is when they took him to the ground.

More than a minute with an arm around his neck

One of the officers held him by the neck for longer than a minute. Dzutovic said several times that he could not breathe. After that he lies motionless, handcuffed, while several officers stand beside him - without starting resuscitation. He died in hospital three days later.

The prosecution argues they exceeded their powers in the use of force. One officer is charged with causing death by negligence, the other five with failure to render assistance. At one of the hearings, one of the accused requested that the footage be excluded from the evidence.

Two versions of the same intervention

This is the part that deserves the most attention. The initial police investigation found no significant irregularities. It was only the later review by the Police Directorate that concluded the force used had been unlawful, incompetent and disproportionate, that a hold around the neck had been applied, and that first aid came late.

The same material, two opposite assessments. The difference is not in the evidence but in who looked at it, and after how long. If there is no camera footage, which version would have stood as the official one?

His brother: he was in a severe mental state

Dzutovic's brother said Armin was going through a severe mental health crisis at that moment, and that if they had acted properly he might be alive today. That is not a legal claim, but the sentence of a man who waited two years for an institution to say what happened.

Why this is a story for us too

Slovenia has been in the EU for more than twenty years, with a system that in theory should be full of checks and internal oversight. It still took camera footage, two years and a second supervisory body to reach a courtroom.

The question is not whether similar interventions happen here - the question is what is left of them when there is no footage. This recording exists by chance for the victim, and by no chance at all for the system: the officers made it themselves. Who answers when the footage does not exist?