Presumed leader of the Corsican criminal gang of “Small BarJacques Santoni, a quadriplegic since a motorcycle accident, was authorized by the courts to return to Corsica during the school holidays, a source close to the case and his lawyer told AFP on Tuesday.
Jacques Santoni, released for medical reasons on March 30, under judicial supervision, saw the latter relieved on October 20 by a judgment of the investigating chamber of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal which makes it possible to go to the Isle of Beauty to “all school holidays“, told AFP his lawyer Pauline Baudu-Armand. Jacques Santoni, 44, is thus “house arrest in Corsica” during the school holidays, “in order to be able to see his children“said his lawyer.
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Banditry case
Before this decision, his judicial control prohibited him from going to Corsica and from contacting his co-indicted, from possessing a weapon or even from leaving the national territory. He also had to fix his domicile in Paris and check in there on a weekly basis.
Presented by the judicial and police authorities as the leader of the Petit Bar criminal gang, Jacques Santoni was indicted in January 2021 by an investigating judge from the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction (JIRS) of Marseille and imprisoned, in particular for extortion in an organized gang, aggravated money laundering and association of criminals, within the framework of a vast financial investigation linked to this criminal gang. He was also indicted in the case of the 2018 assassination attempt in Ajaccio by Guy Orsoni, himself prosecuted in banditry cases.
Described as “the sponsor” and the “brain“of the assassination of lawyer Antoine Sollacaro in 2012, he was returned in this case to the assizes of Bouches-du-Rhône, for complicity in intentional homicide, according to a judgment of October 3, 2022 of the chamber of the instruction from the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal.
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In this case, two other alleged members of the “Small Barare also returned to the assizes, André Bacchiolelli for assassination and Mickaël Ettori for association of criminals with a view to the preparation of crimes.
The investigating chamber of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal had ordered the release of the alleged gang leader in September 2021 due to a state of health deemed incompatible with detention.