He was pulled out of a plane
Belgian professional footballer reports police violence
Updated on January 1, 2025 – 2:47 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Stéphane Oméonga appears to have fallen victim to police violence. The Belgian footballer shared his story via social media.
Belgian professional footballer Stéphane Oméonga shared a disturbing story via Instagram. As the midfielder reports, he was taken off his plane by the police on the evening of December 25th when he wanted to fly from Rome to Tel Aviv. He also shared a video and a longer statement of the scene. The Belgian journalist Sacha Tavolieri drew attention to the story on X.
Stéphane Oméonga: “On December 25th, I was a victim of brutal police violence. During a flight between Rome and Tel Aviv, after I boarded the plane and took my seat, a flight attendant approached me and demanded me because of an alleged problem with my documents to get off the plane.” He then asked what the problem would be. The police were then called, he was handcuffed and led off the plane.
According to Oméonga’s statement, there was then a violent attack by the police. “When I was outside the plane and no longer in the field of vision of the witnesses, the police forcefully threw me to the ground, beat me and one of them pressed his knee against my head,” writes the player, who is currently with the Israeli club Ihud Bnei Sakhnin is under contract.
He was then taken to the airport in a police car. Paramedics were apparently present, but Stéphane Oméonga, who was in shock, could not articulate whether he was missing anything. The police then radioed that he had refused medical care and that everything was fine. “That was completely wrong, I asked them to transport me in the ambulance because I was afraid of what the police could do to me,” describes Oméonga, who, according to his own statement, was then taken to a “grey room” without food or water “was left in a state of complete humiliation for several hours.”
But the story didn’t end there for Stéphane Oméonga. As he learned after his release, a police officer had filed a complaint against him for injuries he allegedly caused the officer even though he was wearing handcuffs. “Moreover, to date I have not received any justification for my arrest,” Oméonga ends his message.