In Corsica, the manager of a funeral home risks six months in prison. He is accused of disposing of human bones hidden in garbage bags.
This Tuesday, December 6, the Bastia prosecutor’s office requested a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 5,000 euros against a manager of a business undertakers, for “harming the integrity of corpses”, reports BFMTV. He is accused of disposing of several corpses. “The case is particularly serious, with an attack on the respect due to the dead”reacted the public prosecutor to our colleagues.
The facts date back to last April when seven coffins and human bones hidden in garbage bags had been found in the middle of a wild dump below a road in the village of Bigorno, in Haute-Corse.
The gendarmes then did the link between the bones found and a request for exhumation made to the funeral director. This was to intervene in a family vault in a neighboring village, then proceed to a cremation of the bones found.
“I did not see the bones in the coffins”
At the beginning of December, the undertaker therefore appeared before the Bastia criminal court, alongside one of his subcontractors. But both passed the buck. The manager of the funeral home, already sentenced to a six-month suspended prison sentence for extortion by threat or coercion and a one-year suspended prison sentence for breach of trust, for his part pleaded good faith. “I did not see the bones in the coffins. (…) I still wonder how it is possible. For me the coffin was empty”, he assured during the hearing. For his part, the subcontractor claims to have taken the garbage bags, but did not know that there were bones inside: “I threw the whole thing in the maquis knowing that it was not legal“, he explained.
The public prosecutor requested against the manager a six-month suspended prison sentence, a fine of 5,000 euros and the prohibition to exercise a profession related to the funeral, for “attack on the integrity of a corpse” and “breach of trust”. With regard to the subcontractor, she asked that he be ordered to pay a fine of 5,000 euros for violating the integrity of a corpse. Defense lawyers pleaded for release. The decision was reserved for January 10.
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A manager of a funeral home is accused of disposing of several corpses.
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Last April, seven coffins and human bones hidden in garbage bags were found in the middle of a wild dump below a road
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At the beginning of December, the undertaker therefore appeared before the Bastia criminal court, alongside one of his subcontractors. But both passed the buck.
© Pexels
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Court
The public prosecutor requested against the manager a six-month suspended prison sentence, a fine of 5,000 euros and a ban on exercising a profession related to the funeral, for “undermining the integrity of a corpse” and “breach of trust”