Prison closed for ex-legionaries involved in arms trafficking

Illustration of the Marseille court -

Prison sentences for former soldiers of the Foreign Legion in Aubagne, in the Bouches-du-Rhône.

Seven former legionaries were sentenced Thursday in Marseille to terms of up to three years in prison for organized arms trafficking while most of them were still wearing uniform.

The facts had been revealed by information sent to the judicial police in March 2013, appointing by name a master corporal and a master sergeant of the Foreign Legion in Aubagne.

The court did not follow the requisitions of the prosecutor who had called for sentences of up to seven years in prison and the judges did not issue any of the seven required warrants.

Interested in a parking lot

The investigation had made it possible to arrest in flagrante delicto on June 29, 2013, in the parking lot of a shopping center located between Marseille and Aix-en-Provence, three legionnaires in the process of handing over to two customers 14 submachine guns and magazines. .

The two clients, a foreman and a cook already convicted of drug trafficking, were sentenced to five years in prison, including two years suspended and a fine of 5,000 euros for one and 7,000 euros for the second.

In her indictment, the prosecutor Alice Mazière had castigated "the dishonor, the deviation of the confidence given by the State to these soldiers by techniques of thugs attracted by the lure of profit".

Marseilles

Arms trafficking: Twenty-two arrests and 81 weapons seized in Marseille and in the Var

Miscellaneous

Pas-de-Calais: A police officer soon tried for embezzlement of sealed weapons

• Marseilles

• Jail

• In prison

• Conviction

• Military

• Arms trafficking

• Foreign Legion