Yvan Colonna is not dead. But the vital prognosis of the one who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac is still engaged, according to several sources familiar with the matter. Now 61, the Corsican shepherd and independence activist was seriously injured on Wednesday morning by a fellow prisoner in Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône) convicted of terrorism. 20 minutes takes stock of the investigation opened by the Tarascon prosecutor’s office and entrusted to the Marseille judicial police.
The facts took place around 10:15 a.m., in the weight room of the central house in Arles, where Yvan Colonna is serving a life sentence for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignanc in February 1998. For reasons that are not not yet known, one of the detainees, convicted of acts of terrorism, tried to strangle and suffocate the Corsican independence activist while the two men were alone in this room. The suspect was in charge of the maintenance of the room, indicated the parquet floor of Tarascon.
The guards then triggered the alarm. The victim was quickly rescued by staff from the prison health unit, who performed cardiac massage. Supported by the firefighters and the Samu, he was taken to the hospital in Arles, before being transferred to Marseille in the afternoon.
Was the assault premeditated? “There was no known difference between these two people,” a prison union source told us. An investigation for attempted murder was opened by the Tarascon prosecutor’s office, entrusted to the judicial police of Marseille. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office informs 20 minutes not to be seized of the case “as is”.
“At this stage, the motive for the attack is unknown. No incident in detention had been reported between the detainee and the victim”, also indicated in a press release the prosecutor of Tarascon, Laurent Gumbau. In addition, the Ministry of Justice announced that at the request of the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, the General Inspectorate of Justice “will be seized today to shed full light on the conditions of this attack on a particular seriousness”.
How is Colonna’s health?
Seriously injured, the vital prognosis of Yvan Colonna is still engaged. He is not dead, contrary to what was mistakenly announced by several media, including 20 minutes. The famous Corsican detainee “is alive but in critical condition”, confirms his lawyer, Me Sylvain Cormier, who received information on his client’s state of health from doctors at the Arles hospital. Me Cormier considers it “particularly bewildering” that the prison administration “proved unable to ensure” the protection of Yvan Colonna who is “one of the most closely watched prisoners in France”. The condemned had presented several requests for reconciliation in Corsica, all refused.
One of his lawyers, Me Emmanuel Mercinier Pantalacci, also told AFP that Yvan Colonna was “in a post-anoxic coma”. This type of coma results from oxygen deprivation in the brain. Police sources contacted by 20 minutes evoked for their part a state of brain death.
The detainee who seriously injured the Corsican independence activist is a 36-year-old Cameroonian jihadist, sentenced to nine years in prison for criminal association with a view to preparing a terrorist act. Franck Elong Abé is particularly known for having participated in the war in Afghanistan. Arrested by the American military, he was detained for two years in Bagram prison, about sixty kilometers north of Kabul, between 2012 and 2014. Sent back to France, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise.
Placed in detention in Rouen prison, he attempted suicide in February 2015. He was then transferred, in March 2015, to the hospital-prison of Seclin (Nord) and tried to escape there after threatening an intern in psychiatry. He was sentenced for these facts to four additional years of imprisonment, as reported by Paris-Normandy at the time. In October 2019, Franck Elong Abé is back in court, in Alençon this time. He is on trial for defacing and setting fire to his cell 14 times between July and August 2019. Sentenced to nine months in prison, he was transferred from the prison of Condé-sur-Sarthe to that of Nantes. He had been serving his sentence in Arles since October 17, 2019.