Commando Erignac: Alessandri and Ferrandi transferred to the Corsican prison of Borgo

Europe 1 with AFP 4:08 p.m., April 11, 2022

Promised by Matignon after the fatal attack on Yvan Colonna in detention, the transfer to the Corsican prison of Borgo of Alain Ferrandi and Pierre Alessandri, the last two members of the commando sentenced to life for the assassination of the prefect Erignac, has was done on Monday.

The two prisoners left the central prison of Poissy in the Yvelines on Monday morning to board a plane bound for Bastia-Poretta airport, several concordant sources told AFP.

The two prisoners settled in the "historic detention center"

Around 1 p.m., two helicopters landed on the Borgo gendarmerie in Haute-Corse, near the penitentiary center where a convoy of three black vehicles with tinted windows rushed in shortly after, under armed escort, noted a journalist from the AFP.

"The detainees are in the prison," a source familiar with the matter confirmed to AFP.

Except for a few journalists, no welcoming committee of any kind was there for their arrival.

The two prisoners will be installed in cells in the "historic detention center" of the prison, which has "two detention centers and a remand center", Maxime Coustié, a UFAP trade unionist in Borgo, told AFP. specifying that the staff had not been informed of these arrivals.

"In the detention center, they have access to the walk as they want, while in the remand center, there are slots," he explained.

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The lifting of their status as "particularly flagged detainees"

This rapprochement comes after a series of decisions taken by the Prime Minister, in charge of this file in place of the Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti, the latter having been Yvan Colonna's lawyer.

On March 22, Jean Castex had thus announced this transfer "by mid-April".

This rapprochement, demanded for a long time by the two detainees, was made possible by the lifting on March 11 by Jean Castex of their status of “particularly reported detainees” (DPS).

This decision was taken in a context of great tension in Corsica, after the attack on Yvan Colonna at the central house in Arles in the Bouches-du-Rhône on March 2, an attack from which he died on March 21.

The former Cargèse shepherd, who died at the age of 61, had also been sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Erignac.

And he, too, had been calling for his rapprochement on the island for a long time.

Many believe that his attack would not have taken place if he had been detained in Corsica.

The rapprochement conditioned by the return to calm on the island

Came to the island in mid-March to try to calm a tense situation, after two weeks of anger and demonstrations turning into riots, with the main slogan "French state assassin", the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had conditioned the rapprochement of Alain Ferrandi and Pierre Alessandri to a return to calm on the island.

Pierre Alessandri, 63, and Alain Ferrandi, 62, arrested in 1999, were sentenced in 2003 to life imprisonment for their participation in the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac on February 6, 1998, in Ajaccio.

They were serving their sentence at the central house in Poissy (Yvelines).

Their requests for reconciliation had all been refused, Corsica, which has three prison establishments, in Borgo, Casabianda and Ajaccio, not hosting any central house, the only type of structure authorized to accommodate DPS.

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Two requests for adjustment of sentences

Alain Ferrandi is now awaiting the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal on April 21 on his request for a sentence adjustment under a semi-freedom regime.

This request, accepted on February 24 at first instance, had been the subject of a suspensive appeal by the national anti-terrorism prosecution.

Pierre Alessandri will have to wait for him on May 12 to know the decision of the court for the application of anti-terrorism sentences concerning his request for accommodation, also under the semi-freedom regime.

For the two detainees, this sentence adjustment requested provides that they work outside during the day and sleep in the Borgo penitentiary center in the evening.

In December, around fifteen parliamentarians from several political groups had signed a column in the daily Le Monde to ask that these three prisoners be able to serve the rest of their sentence in a Corsican prison.