Was it a suicide, an accident or worse? An investigation has been opened to try to answer this question after the death of a 44-year-old prisoner in a fire inside his cell in Fleury-Mérogis (Essonne), the Evry prosecution said on Wednesday. The man had been incarcerated since April 2020 for attempted murder, prosecutors said.
The facts date back to February 14. According to the Interregional Directorate of Penitentiary Services (DISP), the agents discovered the prisoner “lying on the ground” in his cell, located on the first floor of the building of the remand center for men. They tried to practice first aid, but “the body being seriously burned, cardiac massage could not be carried out”. Subsequently the firefighters arrived and were able to see that the victim, in cardiorespiratory arrest, had been extracted from his cell. They also noted that the fire had been partially extinguished by prison administration staff.
“Why so long?”
For their part, the relatives of the deceased castigate a delay in intervention “so long that[il] is found completely burned”. “The time to get the fireproof equipment – the metal doors being hot –, to get equipped, etc., I understand that the family finds the intervention time long”acknowledged a source familiar with the matter.
“Why so long?” also wonders François Korber, general delegate of the association Robin des lois, which defends the rights of prisoners. “This absurd death is tragically reminiscent of that of the young man who set fire to his cell in protest and was found burned alive”he is indignant, denouncing “astonishing heaviness of protocol […] when it comes to a person’s life”.
In April 2016, this 31-year-old man died of a fire in the cell he had just entered. In this investigation, a head of detention and two supervisors are indicted for manslaughter and endangering the lives of others, according to a judicial source.