At the beginning of March, we learned that the Corsican activist Yvan Colonna was violently attacked by another prisoner in Arles prison where he had been incarcerated for years. Hospitalized in Marseille, the man finally succumbed to his injuries after 19 days in a coma and died on March 21.
According to the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT), he was allegedly the victim “from strangulation with bare hands, then from suffocation”. In the process, Me Emmanuelle Mercinier-Pantalacci, the former shepherd’s lawyer reacted: “The time is for meditation and in a second time, the responsibilities that appear evident will have to be assumed by those concerned“. As a reminder, Yvan Colonna was imprisoned after being sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac in February 1998.
Despite his status as an assassin, Yvan Colonna remained in Corsica, a figure of the island’s independence and his death therefore generated a wave of sadness and anger. Many residents have displayed flags and posters with the most famous photo of Yvan Colonna, long black hair in the wind, taken in 2003 at the time of his arrest.
A surprising video unveiled
But twenty years after being arrested and placed in prison, Yvan Colonna had literally changed in appearance. This is indeed what we could see thanks to a video unveiled this Thursday, March 31, 2022 by the BFMTV channel and recorded two months before the death of the prisoner. In this video shot in Arles prison, Yvan Colonna talks with another inmate, a Basque separatist, during a game of chess. “We’ll wake up, don’t worry. I have confidence. One day Corsica will be independent” declares Yvan Colonna who therefore had the same convictions after all these years. Exit the black hair and his thick beard, the 61-year-old man appears clean-shaven with a regrowth of white hair.
“Corsica will be independent”: the exchange between Yvan Colonna and a fellow prisoner filmed two months before his death pic.twitter.com/m9EQR1o3Vi
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) March 31, 2022
See also:
Aliénor de la Fontaine