PARIS —  An internal police review of the 2005 electrocutions of two teenagers that triggered weeks of rioting in poor French neighborhoods faulted police officers for their handling of the case, a lawyer for the victims' families said Thursday.

Lawyer Jean-Pierre Mignard said the report confirmed officers had indeed been chasing the teens before they were killed _ which the Interior Ministry and police had initially denied.

Zyed Benna, 17, and Bouna Traore, 15, were electrocuted while hiding in a power station in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois on Oct. 27, 2005. A third teen, Muhittin Altun, was also hiding in the power station and survived with severe burns.

The report found the officers were "surprisingly distracted" and had acted with a "lack of thought," Mignard said. Excerpts also appeared in Le Monde newspaper.

The report said officers should immediately have notified French energy company EDF that the youths were hiding in the power station.

If the company had been alerted when one of the officers "realized the two youths could possibly enter the power station, EDF technicians would have intervened 15 minutes before the accident," the report said, adding that such steps would not necessarily have prevented the electrocutions.

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The report also found that Traore and another teen were preparing to rob a construction site when a plainclothes officer gave chase, setting in motion a series of pursuits that ended at the power station.

Mignard disputed the robbery allegation, pointing out that another probe by the prosecutor's office in the Paris suburb of Bobigny showed the youths had not committed any crime.

Investigators based their findings on interviews with 20 officers and four teens.

The nationwide riots in fall 2005 raged through housing projects in troubled neighborhoods with large minority populations. Although they stemmed from the teens' deaths, they were fueled by problems including discrimination and unemployment.

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