Paris (AFP)
The Paris Court of Appeal on Monday rejected the third application for release of the mayor LR of Levallois-Perret Patrick Balkany, incarcerated for nearly three months after his successive convictions for tax evasion and money laundering.
The court ruled his claim "admissible" but "unfounded". The elected 71-year-old will appear detained at his trial on appeal for tax evasion, which begins Wednesday in Paris.
"The continued detention of Patrick Balkany is ordered," said the president, without explaining the motives of the court. The Baron des Hauts-de-Seine, who refused to be removed from his cell of the prison of health, was not present at the deliberate.
"I do not understand this decision," responded immediately Mr. Balkany's lawyer, Romain Dieudonné. "Mr. Balkany will appear before the court (appeal), which is once again totally unusual and truly unusual in a case of this nature," he told the press at the exit of the hearing.
For his anchoring in a "highly remunerative delinquency", Patrick Balkany was sentenced twice: to four years in prison for tax evasion with immediate imprisonment on September 13, then to five years in prison for aggravated money laundering with a new warrant of committal on October 18.
The court of appeal had granted its first application for release, in the tax evasion case, placing the elected under severe judicial control on the condition of prior payment of a deposit of 500,000 euros.
On the other hand, she had rejected her second request for release, filed in the money laundering case, in particular "to prevent the exercise of a consultation between the persons implicated, whether they are appellant or relaxed".
Last Monday, Patrick Balkany had asked on the one hand his release and on the other hand a lowering of his bail, "disproportionate to the income" of the couple and set after a "perfectly disproportionate" assessment of his property, according to his lawyer.
The prosecution objected to all these requests, noting that the defense had brought "nothing new" to the case.
© 2019 AFP