Justice granted, this Thursday, March 17, a suspension of sentence “for medical reasons” to the Corsican independence activist Yvan Colonna, after his violent attack in the prison of Arles at the beginning of March.
His lawyers had made this request while Yvan Colonna is still hospitalized between life and life and death.
The law provides that a prison sentence can be suspended in the event of a vital prognosis.
The decision was made by the judge responsible for the application of anti-terrorist sentences, following a favorable opinion from the anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office.
A relief for the family
“It’s a relief for the family,” reacted one of Yvan Colonna’s lawyers, Sylvain Cormier, welcoming “the work of justice which has made full use of the emergency device” provided for by law.
The decision means that Yvan Colonna “is no longer in the hands of justice and therefore no longer comes under the prison administration”, specified the judicial source.
Visits from relatives should be facilitated, a visit permit no longer being necessary.
Yvan Colonna had been very seriously injured by another inmate who had attacked him in Arles prison on March 2. He has been in a coma ever since, in a hospital in Marseille.
His attacker Franck Elong Abé, who was serving several sentences including one of nine years’ imprisonment for “terrorist criminal association”, has been indicted for attempted terrorist assassination since March 6.
Definitively sentenced since 2012 to life for the assassination of the prefect Erignac in 1998, Yvan Colonna has been released in law since 2021.
The government announced on March 8 that Yvan Colonna was no longer considered a “particularly flagged detainee”.
“This decision is based on the particular gravity of the health situation of Yvan Colonna”, had then argued Matignon.