Yvan Colonna's murderer "wanted to pay for someone famous", says the prison director
Marc Ollier (L), director of the prison of Arles, and Corinne Puglierini, former director of the prison, are heard by the law commission of the National Assembly, following the assassination of the Corsican separatist Yvan Colonna within the prison, at the French National Assembly in Paris, March 30, 2022. AFP - EMMANUEL DUNAND
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Following the fatal attack on the Corsican independence activist Yvan Colonna by a radicalized fellow prisoner, the director of the central house of Arles was heard this Wednesday, March 30 before the deputies of the law commission of the National Assembly.
MEPs wanted answers to many of the questions that arise in this case.
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One of the questions of the deputies is whether this deadly attack could have been avoided?
O again: why the incident, filmed by cameras installed in the sports hall where it took place, was not interrupted by the supervisors?
According to Marc Ollier, director of the central house in Arles, it is impossible to watch the images from the 280 cameras in the prison at the same time.
Another question from the deputies: why did Yvan Colonna and his murderer Franck Elong Abé find themselves alone, without a supervisor, when they both had the status of particularly reported detainees, because of their personality or their behavior in detention? ?
There too, Marc Ollier evokes the impossibility of putting an agent behind one, two or three particularly reported detainees.
He recalls that the only way to prevent any contact between this category of prisoners is to put them in solitary confinement, which was not justified for Colonna and his attacker.
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To read also France: Corsican independence activist Yvan Colonna died
The murderer of Yvan Colonna in Arles prison "
wanted to pay for someone known
", estimated the head of this establishment at the National Assembly, saying that he did not believe in the explanation of a "
blasphemy
" uttered by the Corsican prisoner.
“
Until March 2, none of you had heard of it.
What could he do to be known and not be the little unknown jihadist among X in France
?
Attack (…) who, if not the best known on the prison, Yvan Colonna
, ”said Marc Ollier during a hearing before the law commission.
"
It's my feeling, it's my impression, I have no proof
," added the man who took office on March 1, the day before the violent attack on Yvan Colonna, who was serving a prison sentence. to life for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac in 1998 in Ajaccio.
Falling into a coma after his attack, Yvan Colonna died on March 21.
A criminal investigation and an administrative investigation have already been opened in this case.
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