The famous Corsican prisoner, seriously injured after being attacked by another prisoner in Arles prison on March 2, and who had since been in a coma, died on Monday in Marseille, his family announced via his lawyer. Yvan Colonna had been found guilty of the assassination of the prefect of Corse-du-Sud, Claude Érignac, perpetrated on February 6, 1998.
” The family of Yvan Colonna confirms his death this evening at the hospital in Marseille. She asks that her grief be respected and will not comment “, specified Me Patrick Spinosi to AFP, by text message, thus confirming information also obtained by AFP from three police sources and initially given by the daily The Parisian.
Yvan Colonna was in a coma since his assault in early March at the central house of Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône), where he was serving his prison sentence for his participation in the assassination of the prefect Claude Érignac in 1998 in Ajaccio.
He had been violently attacked in the prison sports hall by Franck Elong Abé, a 36-year-old Cameroonian presented as a “jihadist”, who was serving several sentences including one of nine years’ imprisonment for “terrorist criminal association”. This radicalized detainee has since been indicted for attempted terrorist assassination.
According to several sources, the aggressor of Yvan Colonna had justified his act by the fact that the Corsican militant would have blasphemed and ” badly spoken of the Prophet “. The independence activist, who was 61 years old, was the victim strangulation with bare hands then suffocation “, with a plastic bag, had specified the prosecutor of Tarascon Laurent Gumbau.
The shepherd of Cargèse, as the media had nicknamed him after the name of a Corsican village where he had settled, was a figure of the independence movement of the island. After the assassination of the prefect Érignac in February 1998 in Ajaccio, he had spent four years on the run, before his arrest and his life sentence after three trials.
This attack had provoked an outburst of anger, with sometimes violent demonstrations, throughout Corsica, for nearly two weeks. This anger culminated in riots on March 13 in Bastia, with a demonstration that left 102 injured, including 77 on the side of the police.
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Calm returned last week with a three-day visit to Corsica by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, during which the latter promised discussions with Corsican elected officials and the living forces of the island who could lead to eventual autonomy for the community.
With agencies