The former French Formula 1 driver Jean Alesi, who will be tried in correctional in 2023 for having detonated with a big firecracker the window of the office of a former companion of his sister, disputes everything “family conflict” with the latter, according to his lawyer.
The architect whose office window was damaged “was not his brother-in-law” corn “a former boyfriend of her sister” from whom she had separated “conflict-free” for two years, told AFP Thibault de Montbrial, lawyer for Jean Alesi. “It is absolutely not a family conflict”, he insisted, specifying that this former boyfriend of his sister and Jean Alesi were “in cordial and non-confrontational terms”.
The former Ferrari driver had explained to investigators that he only wanted to do “a bad joke” to the architect. The latter for his part said that he had “no problem” with Jean Alesi, but nevertheless lodged a complaint for the degradation of his window.
The facts occurred Sunday evening in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (Gard), where the 57-year-old ex-pilot resides. The police had been called around 10 p.m. by the neighborhood, worried by the sound of an explosion. Thanks to the license plate number noted by a neighbor, the police were able to determine that the vehicle seen on the spot before leaving with all lights out belonged to José Alesi, the brother of the ex-pilot, who was arrested.
The next day, Jean Alesi went to the Avignon police station (Vaucluse), where he cleared his brother from customs, explaining that it was he who was in the car, with his son and a friend of his. this. He also stated that he himself had “stuck a ‘large fireworks display bought in Italy’ in the frame of a window of his brother-in-law’s architectural practice”, without imagining that it would explode, had explained the deputy prosecutor of Nîmes, Antoine Wolff.
“His son has absolutely nothing to do with what he has done”, added Thibault de Montbrial, stressing that neither the latter nor his friend in the car knew what Jean Alesi was going to do when he asked his son, who was driving, to stop.
Jean Alesi “was surprised by the violence of the explosion” and “didn’t think it was going to blow the glass”, he continued: “It’s a stupid, childish and unwelcome impulse, but one of which he had the idea on his own and which he is alone to have carried out.“, according to the lawyer.
The former Ferrari driver will be tried in 2023 in Nîmes “for degradation of the property of others by a means dangerous for the people, fact committed within the framework of a family conflict”, according to the prosecution of Nîmes, while his son will be prosecuted for complicity in the same case.