A major operation called “Ultras 42” took place Monday morning, almost four months after the serious incidents following the L1-L2 return dam between AS Saint-Etienne and AJ Auxerre. A hundred police officers were mobilized and arrested a total of 27 men, including a minor, aged 17 to 38, all in six different departments, as explained by the Saint-Etienne prosecutor in a press release. Eleven of the ultras arrested as part of this investigation into violence after the ASSE-AJA match will be tried in corrections on November 16, we learned on Tuesday from one of the lawyers.
These are members of the Magic Fans and the Green Angels, the two main groups of supporters of the Saint-Etienne club, specifies Me Laurent Verilhac, who represents five of the defendants. The suspects were identified after viewing dozens of hours of recordings from CCTV cameras, making it possible to trace the perpetrators of the violence inside the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium (in particular in the official stand), those who participated in the clashes with degradation of street furniture outside the stadium, but also those who introduced smoke bombs, according to the press release released Monday evening.
Damage estimated at nearly 600,000 euros
Some suspects had already been convicted of offenses related to a sporting event, according to the same source. The 11 defendants returned to correctional will be placed under judicial supervision with a stadium ban, a ban on participating in a rally and an obligation to report to the police station during ASSE matches, according to Me Verilhac. The Saint-Etienne public prosecutor’s office requested the placement in pre-trial detention for one of them, pending the trial on November 16.
On May 29, in the seconds following the penalty shootout lost by the Greens (1-1, 4-5 on pens), synonymous with relegation of the Saint-Etienne team, hundreds of ultras, often hidden under hoods or scarves, had invaded the lawn, showing their anger by throwing smoke bombs and firework mortars towards the official platform, sometimes with direct fire. The violence, which continued for nearly two hours near the Cauldron, involved 150 to 200 men, causing damage estimated at around 500,000 euros (according to the club’s advertising department), for the destruction of advertising screens in LED, and 90,000 euros on the mainland side.