five days later the assassination in Paris of the former rugby player, Federico Martin Aramburuthe main suspect, Loïk Le Priol, a far-right activist, was arrested overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in Hungarynear the border with Ukraineconfirmed the Paris prosecutor’s office to 20 minutes.
The 27-year-old is suspected of shooting the Argentina international after an altercation at a bar in Saint-Germain-des-Près. Another man, also affiliated with the ultra-right, who would have also shot the ex-rugby player, was arrested this Wednesday in Sarthe by the Nantes research and intervention brigade (BRI). A young woman, suspected of having driven the car from which two men allegedly fired, was meanwhile indicted for “complicity in murder” and remanded in custody on Tuesday.
Dismissed from the army
Go back a few years. We are in 2010. Loïk Le Priol, 16 years old, joins the School of foams of the French Navy, in Brest. Subsequently, he joined the marine commando of Montfort, as a rifleman, with which he participated in external operations in Mali and Djibouti between 2013 and 2015. Services which will also bring him two individual citations and two medals of Overseas and National Defence. But on July 7, 2015, Loïk Le Priol, in his twenties, was repatriated to France on the recommendation of military doctors. The latter detect a state of severe post-traumatic stress related to his function, adding “that taking alcohol […] would have impaired his judgment,” explains the Administrative Court of Appeal of Marseille in a decision than the online media StreetPress, who devoted a long investigation to the far-right activistspotted on the Légifrance website.
But that’s not all. According to our colleagues from Marianne, who also worked on the course of the young man, he would also have been implicated in Djibouti for having “struck and strangled a prostitute”. In its decision, the administrative justice explains that the soldier was placed on long sick leave on July 9, 2015, which was renewed until the end of December 2017. But even before the end of this judgment, Loïk Le Priol was dismissed from the army on October 2, 2017, due to the opening of a judicial investigation against him for acts of aggravated violence.
A regular in the courts
Because the young man is well known to the judicial services. As reported Marianne and AFP, Loïk Le Priol has already been sentenced at the age of 19 for violence and to four months in prison suspended at 23 years for intentional violence in a meeting and drunk driving. But the case that earned him his removal from the army is the attack on Edouard Klein, the former president of the Union Defense Group (GUD), an ultra-right group in which Loïk Le Priol militates in 2015 .
On the night of October 8 to 9, 2015, Loïk Le Priol and four other “gudards” violently beat up and humiliated Edouard Klein. Filmed, this ultra-violent attack was revealed by our colleagues from Mediapart. As the Administrative Court of Appeal pointed out, Loïk Le Priol allegedly “filmed the scene, interrupting the victim’s apartment for the purposes of a punitive expedition, ensuing lynching, insults, humiliations and threats by means of a knife “. After his arrest on October 14, 2015 at his home, a judicial investigation is therefore opened against the former soldier for “aggravated violence resulting in an eight-day ITT”. The young man, 21 years old at the time of the events, was placed in pre-trial detention and imprisoned in the Fleury-Mérogis remand center, before being placed under judicial supervision from November 3, 2015 to April 7, 2016.
After two dismissals, the five suspects prosecuted for this attack must appear on June 1 next before the criminal court for “aggravated violence” with ITT greater than 8 days, committed in a meeting, under the threat of a weapon, with premeditation. Facts for which some defendants – repeat offenders – incur up to ten years in prison.
“Babtou solid certified”
After his military career, Loïk Le Priol launched into entrepreneurship. In 2016, he launched with Louise, his girlfriend at the time, Certified Solid Babtou – “toubab” backwards, a nickname given in certain African countries to Europeans, to whites – a line of clothing that is a hit in nationalist circles. “Move your ass off your chair, lift some heavy iron, learn your fucking history by reading books as big as the balls of your ancestors, puff out your chest, look up, look up at the sky and finally join your destiny . Become a certified solid babtou! “, can we read on the Facebook page of the brand. The very young entrepreneur is “tired of seeing little young people vaping cotton candy-flavored smoke choosing their latest slim jeans”, he explained in 2016 to Streepress, who asks him about his very young company. The creation of the brand will also earn him an interview in The New Editionon Canal +, in 2016, in which he assumes his nationalism.
To promote Babtou solid certified, Loïk Le Priol surrounds himself with several far-right personalities, such as the nationalist YouTuber Baptiste Marchais or Julien Rochedy, the former president of the National Youth Front, whom he asks to pose with his clothes. . And the relations are not only professional, as evidenced by his Facebook and Twitter profile photos, where we see him in particular alongside Jean-Romée Charbonneau, candidate for the national rally in Niort during the last municipal elections of 2020 and Julien Rochedy.
If he recognized Tuesday on Twitterthat Loïk Le Priol was “a friend”, with whom he hung out “sometimes around 2012-2014”, he explained that he had “moved away [de lui] following the Edouard Klein affair”. “Those who knew Loïk all thought he had calmed down. He had always been cracked, he was followed by an army shrink, but the last time I saw him in Paris, he had a girlfriend, plans, seemed peaceful. We were happy “that he was better” […]. Then comes this horrible piece of information out of nowhere. A fight, alcohol, firearms, Loik who freaks out and commits this unspeakable act…”, adds the one who now presents himself as an author, trainer and polemicist.
Now in the hands of the police, Loïk Le Priol will now be heard as part of the investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office for “assassination”, entrusted to the criminal brigade.