UJudicial information will be opened, a few days following the serious attack on Yvan Colonna, sentenced for the assassination of the prefect Erignac committed in 1998, by a jihadist detainee in the prison of Arles. The police custody of the latter, Franck Elong Abe, 35, was lifted on Sunday, following which the national anti-terrorism prosecutor announced the opening of this information. The suspect is charged with “attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise” and “terrorist criminal association”.
During a press conference organized on Sunday March 6, the prosecutor Jean-François Ricard specified that the anti-terrorist prosecution will require the indictment of the suspect, for the aforementioned charges, and his placement in pre-trial detention. He also added that this is the “fifth” terrorist crime committed within the confines of a French prison establishment since 2016.
The investigation will focus on “retracing with the greatest meticulousness the course in detention” of the aggressor, “determining all of his contacts, particularly among people who share his ideology” and “clarifying any interactions (…) likely to have played a role in the facts”, specified Mr. Ricard.
He confirmed that Franck Elong Abe, who was serving several sentences including one of nine years for “criminal association with a view to preparing an act of terrorism”, had during his police custody explained his act “by what he considered as blasphemies” uttered in recent months by Yvan Colonna. The latter would have declared in particular a few days before the attack that he “spit on God”, according to Mr. Ricard.
Retracing minute by minute the course of the attack on Wednesday morning, the prosecutor declared that “the systematic relentlessness deployed by the respondent” left “little doubt regarding his homicidal intent”. The vital prognosis of the Corsican independence activist, who has since been in a coma, is at this time “still engaged”, also indicated Mr. Ricard.
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