Yvan Colonna had been attacked by a fellow prisoner. The attack led to protests lasting several days in Corsica.
Yvan Colonna in a photo from 1999. For many in Corsica he is a victim of the French state.
Yvan Colonna has maintained his innocence to the end. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1998 murder of Corsican Prefect Claude Érignac, in a season of three controversial trials. On March 2, a fellow prisoner – an Islamist – attacked him in the maximum security prison in Arles and seriously injured him. Days of riots followed in Corsica, with several dozen injured, young and very young people gave the police street battles in the towns of the island. After three weeks in a coma, Colonna died on Monday, his family’s attorney announced.
For the Corsican nationalists, the French state is to blame for Colonna’s death. It took eight minutes for the prison officers to intervene, by which time Colonna was practically dead. “Statu francese assassinu” is written on banners on the fence in front of the Bastia courthouse, a dozen people gathered here on Monday evening for the vigil. On Tuesday morning the banners are removed. All is quiet on this sunny morning. The Colonnas family has asked that their grief be respected.
Serious riots broke out in the Corsican capital of Ajaccio as a result of the attack on the imprisoned separatist Colonna.
The French media liked to call Yvan Colonna the “Shepherd of Cargèse”. In doing so, they subliminally gave to understand that he was a Corsican peasant bumpkin, backwoods, stubborn. For the Corsicans, however, the shepherds are above all free men, emphasizes the local newspaper “Corse Matin” in its Tuesday edition. Colonna’s parents were both teachers, the son, born in 1960, began studying, but then, in line with the spirit of the times, became a «néorural». That was the response of many French students to the economic boom and consumer society.
After the murder of Érignac, Colonna went into hiding for four years. He was wanted internationally, also in South America. Eventually the police found him in a mountain hut in Corsica. Colonna was accused by other defendants and by their wives in police questioning as the main perpetrator. They later withdrew their statements in court, saying they were made under pressure. The only eyewitness to the murder exonerated Colonna. The second trial was canceled because a defense witness was intimidated by the judge. The third trial then led to the final conviction.
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