Quebec police watchdog gave biased account of Koray Kevin Celik's death: Court of Appeal

The Quebec Court of Appeal is upholding a decision that found the province's police watchdog, the BEI, "lacked impartiality" in its description of a Montreal police intervention involving the death of a young man.

The Quebec Court of Appeal is upholding a decision that found the province's police watchdog, the BEI, "lacked impartiality" in its description of a Montreal police intervention involving the death of a young man.

In 2021, the family of 28-year-old Koray Kevin Celik sued the BEI (Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes) for issuing what was, in their view, a biased press release detailing the moments before their son's death.

The family won their case and was awarded $30,000 in damages, but it was appealed. Then, in December 2023, the justice system once again sided with the Celiks. While Judge Simon Ruel did not agree with the trial judge's assessments in their entirety, he concurred that the BEI's press release was biased and that the ruling was fair.

"The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the trial judge didn't err in law and [it found] that the press release was biased in favour of the officers, which is what the Celik family had had claimed all along," the family's lawyer, Francois Mainguy, told CTV News in an interview Saturday.