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 house in Poissy (Yvelines) on Monday morning to board a plane bound for Bastia-Poretta airport, several concordant sources told AFP.
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Around 1:00 p.m., two helicopters landed on the Borgo gendarmerie (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”, immediately confirmed a source close to the file.
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Except for a few journalists, no welcoming committee was there for their arrival.
The two prisoners will be installed in cells of the “historic detention center” of the prison, indicated Maxime Coustié, UFAP trade unionist in Borgo, specifying that the staff had not been informed of these arrivals.
This rapprochement comes after a series of decisions 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 announced this transfer “by mid-April”.
Claimed for a long time by the two detainees, this rapprochement was made possible by the lifting on March 11 by Mr. Castex of their status of “particularly reported detainees” (DPS).
“We are satisfied with it but we are not happy about it given the circumstances”, told AFP Me Eric Barbolosi, lawyer for Pierre Alessandri, referring to the fact that this decision was taken after the attack on ‘Yvan Colonna at the central house in Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône), on March 2, where he was serving his life sentence for the assassination of the prefect Erignac. Assault from which he died on March 21.
– Requests for day parole –
This attack had caused great tension in Corsica, many believing that it would not have taken place if he had been detained in Corsica. The former shepherd of Cargèse also claimed for a long time his rapprochement on the island.
“This is the epilogue of a long legal and political fight”, reacted Gilles Simeoni, the autonomist president of the Collectivity of Corsica, with France 3 Corsica, expressing his “satisfaction and relief” for the prisoners and their family and acknowledging that “the document co-signed with (the Minister of the Interior) Gérald Darmanin” had been “loyally applied by the State on this point”.
“Their release must follow”, insisted Paul-Félix Benedetti, leader of the independence party Core in Fronte, on Twitter.
Came to the island in mid-March to try to calm the situation, after two weeks of demonstrations turning into riots, with the main slogan “French state assassin”, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had conditioned the rapprochement of MM. Ferrandi and 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.
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.
Alain Ferrandi is now awaiting the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal on his request for a sentence adjustment under a semi-freedom regime, on April 21. 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 until May 12 to find out the decision of the court for the application of anti-terrorism sentences concerning his request for accommodation, also on semi-freedom.
For the two detainees, this arrangement 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.