The assassination of Yvan Colonna, on March 2, 2022 in the prison of Arles, is not the consequence of “unfortunate coincidences”, but rather the fruit of “inaction” and “errors” of the authorities. A little over a year after the deadly attack on the Corsican separatist, the parliamentary commission of inquiry delivered a vitriolic report on Tuesday on the multiple “failures” identified in this file.
“The administrative and political management of the “commando Érignac”, and, in particular, of Yvan Colonna and the calamitous management of the course of Elong Abé (…) led to the tragedy”, insist the two Corsican deputies Laurent Marcangeli and Jean- Félix Acquaviva, respectively rapporteur and chairman of the committee. In their eyes, there is no doubt, “this assassination remains in the domain of a state affair”.
Two weights, two measures ?
Throughout their report, the fruit of six months of work, the deputies draw a parallel between the severity of the prison treatment imposed on Yvan Colonna, sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Erignac in 1998 and, at the conversely, the “guilty leniency” from which his assassin, Franck Elong Abé, benefited, who went to fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban in the early 2010s. in custody is diametrically opposed.
Yvan Colonna is unanimously described as an uneventful prisoner. “Exemplary attitude”, “smiling”, “calm and respectful”, say the guards of him. In eighteen years, only thirteen incidents have been noted, which is “rather few, these incidents also not being major”, assured during his hearing the former director of the Penitentiary administration, Laurent Ridel . And to clarify: “Yvan Colonna maintained courteous relations with practically everyone. He had no declared enemy. How then to explain “the energy developed by the prison administration” to guarantee the maintenance of his status as a particularly guarded prisoner? A heavy and restrictive status which notably prevented him from serving the end of his sentence in the Corsican prison of Borgo. In the eyes of the deputies, who are calling for a reform of the DPS statute, the thesis of a “State revenge” is a reality “difficult to dispute”.
“The dangerousness and instability of the individual are manifest”
Conversely, note the Corsican elected officials, the “management of the course of Franck Elong Abé leaves you speechless”. Sentenced to nine years in prison in 2016 for “terrorist criminal association”, the man is described by the intelligence services as being “part of the top of the pad of Islamist terrorist detainees”. He is, however, one of the few not to have gone through a radicalization assessment district (QER), in particular because of serious psychiatric problems. His prison career is punctuated by serious incidents, including several fires in his cell and the attack on an intern with a homemade weapon.
After years spent in solitary confinement, improvements in his behavior were noted on his arrival in Arles in October 2019. In February 2021, he joined ordinary detention and in September of the same year, he thus became “the only prisoner “Condemned for “Islamist terrorism” and “Particularly guarded” to “Occupy a job in the general service with freedom of movement”, note the deputies. And to insist: “While the dangerousness and instability of the individual are manifest, the prison administration will show, in the management of his case, an attitude diametrically opposed to that which it showed to the place of Yvan Colonna. »
The question is all the more sensitive as the improvement in his behavior is not unanimously noted: at least four incidents passed over in silence by Laurent Ridel and the former director of the Arles plant during their hearings, been raised.
The blasphemy thesis questioned
At the end of its work, the commission issued 29 recommendations relating in particular to “the detection and monitoring of dangerous radicalized detainees”, and the improvement of the care of “those with psychiatric disorders”. But the deputies also ventured into the field of the judicial inquiry to try to understand what motivated these eight minutes of an outburst of unprecedented violence when the two men seemed to have a good relationship.
The report is particularly skeptical of the thesis of blasphemy put forward by the respondent to justify his action. “Unlikely, or at least surprising, in view of Yvan Colonna’s respectful behavior towards other detainees”, assure the deputies, calling for all avenues to be explored, including that of a “sponsored” act ( …) linked to resentment, resentment, “hate” that certain spheres maintained against members of the Erignac commando”. The judicial investigation is still ongoing.