Justice on Thursday granted a suspension of sentence “for medical reasons” to the Corsican independence activist Yvan Colonna, after his violent attack in Arles prison in early March, AFP learned on Thursday from a judicial source.
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.
No more visit permits
“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”, said the judicial source. Visits from relatives should be made easier, as a visit permit is no longer required.
Still in a coma
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 imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Erignac in 1998, Yvan Colonna has been released by law since 2021. Unlike the two other members of the commando Alain Ferrandi and Pierre Alessandri, he had not yet filed a request for adjustment of sentence on the date of his attack.
The government announced on March 8 that Yvan Colonna was no longer considered a “particularly reported detainee” (DPS). “This decision (…) is based on the particular gravity of Mr. Colonna’s health situation”, Matignon then argued. This DPS status was also lifted on Friday for Pierre Alessandri and Alain Ferrandi, who should therefore be able to serve the rest of their sentence in a Corsican prison.