CORRECTION. Contrary to what franceinfo announced in a previous version of this article, Yvan Colonna is not dead. He is in serious condition, in a post-anoxic coma. This initial information was based on several concordant sources, but they were contradicted by other sources, in particular by the prosecutor of Tarascon, at the end of the day. Franceinfo apologizes to its readers for this error.
Yvan Colonna, definitively condemned in 2011 for the assassination of the prefect Erignac, is between life and death, we learned on Wednesday March 2 from concordant sources. It was victime “from strangulation with bare hands, then from suffocation” from a fellow prisoner in Arles prison (Bouches-du-Rhône), announced the Tarascon prosecutor. Found seriously injured, he was hospitalized in absolute emergency in Arles, before being transferred to a hospital in Marseille. According to one of his lawyers and the prosecutor, Yvan Colonna is in a post-anoxic coma, a type of coma resulting from oxygen deprivation in the brain.
According to our information, his attacker is 36 years old. The latter has been serving a nine-year sentence in Arles prison since 2019 for “criminal association with a view to preparing an act of terrorism”, adds the prosecutor. He attacked Yvan Colonna during a sports activity.
The suspect was placed in police custody by the criminal brigade of the zonal direction of the South Judicial Police. An investigation for “attempted assassination” was opened by the public prosecutor of Tarascon. The General Inspectorate of Justice will also be seized, at the request of the Prime Minister, announces the ministry of justice in his press release.
Aged 61, Yvan Colonna was sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect of Corsica Claude Erignac – facts that he has always disputed. Imprisoned for several years in the central house of Arles, he made several requests to be transferred to Corsica, all refused.
On the evening of February 6, 1998, the prefect of Corsica, Claude Erignac, was killed by several bullets in the back in a street in Ajaccio, while he was walking to the theater. This assassination, claimed by an anonymous group, caused a shock wave in public opinion.
In May 1999, four men were arrested. Going to confession, they had accused Yvan Colonna. The shepherd, who became the most wanted man in France, then spent several years on the run in the Corsican maquis, before being finally arrested in July 2003.
Eight years later and after three trials, Yvan Colonna was sentenced in June 2011 to life imprisonment. The court notably justified its decision by the assertions of the other members of the commando and their wives. During a first trial in 2003, some defendants had put him out of the case. An appeal in cassation was rejected in 2012, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled inadmissible a complaint by Yvan Colonna for violation of his presumption of innocence in 2016, definitively validating his sentence.