It is 62 pages. The report (PDF file) on thehe circumstances of the assassination of Yvan Colonna at the central house of Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône), at the beginning of March, was put online on the evening of Thursday July 28 by the General Inspectorate of Justice. She points to several “failures” from two agents, a supervisor and the former director of the establishment. Matignon, who has “decided to follow all the recommendations”, will engage “disciplinary proceedings” against them. Franceinfo summarizes the four essential elements of this document.
A “clear lack of vigilance” of the supervisor in charge of the activities
It is 10:13 a.m. on March 2 when Yvan Colonna is in the central sports hall. He is “lying on the ground, practicing weight exercises”. Franck Elong Abe, a radicalized fellow prisoner, go then “Enter the gym, close the door, then jump in with both feet” on the Corsican separatist. On page 24, the report describes “nine minutes of extreme violence” who “illustrate a real relentlessness”.
The aggression only stops when Yvan Colonna remains inert on the ground. Franck Elong Abe (whom the authors of the report call “X”) “leaves the room and returns there thirty seconds later, equipped with his cleaning trolley”. “He removes the garbage bags” which he had used to suffocate his victim, “then comes out again”.
It is only then that the supervisor in charge of the establishment’s activities will intervene. “If the supervisor triggered his alarm without delay, the mission notes on viewing a certain nonchalance in his way of proceeding”notes the report, which goes so far as to describe a “moderate responsiveness”. The authors point out “the clear lack of vigilance” of the supervisor “yet experienced”, who “has not sufficiently deployed active surveillance”. Concretely, it is “stayed, without any reason, away from the corridor leading to the place of the facts”.
“The professionalism of this agent has been altered by a routine combined with a proximity to the protagonists. The mission considers that this lack of vigilance is likely to constitute a disciplinary breach.”
The General Inspectorate of Justicein his report
A “misuse of images from CCTV cameras”
It is the second point which holds the attention of the inspection mission: the video surveillance, and precisely its “bad” use. We learn in the report that the cameras were badly positioned. “Viewing the activities sector, in particular the cardio training room where the attack took place, would have required a change in the settings”. But that was not done.
This “mmisuse of images from CCTV cameras”says the report, has been “accentuated by the lack of control of this device by the agent on duty at the information and control post (PIC) at the time of the events”. “This one, like his colleagues”, did not have “not been trained in the correct use of the equipment, which is essential for complementarity with active surveillance”.
This is indeed what the official explained to the authors of the report: “The supervisor on duty told the mission that he had no [repositionné les caméras] because he was not familiar with the operation of the equipment and had not since been trained in the use of newly installed equipment”. Thereby, “for fear of mishandling, he preferred to abstain when a simple click would have allowed him to drag a camera on his screen and thus choose another area to control”.
A “repeated negligence” of the former head of establishment
She too will be the subject of “disciplinary proceedings”. Corinne Puglierini, the former director of Arles prison, is singled out for his “lack of management”. the report note “I’absence, on several occasions, of orientation” of Frank Elong Abe “in the Radicalization Assessment District (QER)”. This decision should have been made “in July 2019 by the director of the prison administration then, subsequently, dealt with by the head of the establishment, first in February 2020 then on three other occasions in November 2020, May 2021 and January 2022″. “By not sharing useful information for the management of the perpetrator’s detention with his assistant and the other management staff”, Corinne Puglierini “showed repeated negligence”.
Despite their status as particularly reported detainees (DPS), “nothing forbade” at the direction of the prison of Arles “to give work to the general service of the establishment” to Yvan Colonna and Franck Elong Abe. The second is indeed what is called an “auxi”, that is to say an inmate authorized to work in the prison and who can therefore move more freely.
Simply, the report continues, the prison behavior of Frank Elong abe had indeed been brought to the attention of Corinne Puglierini. On page 22, the authors of the report refer to the “personality at the very least disturbed” of the detainee, “a personality who questions both the staff, all bodies and functions combined, and his fellow prisoners. All of them strive to describe a rather solitary man, full of himself, who can be haughty and not very accessible to the remarks made to him” .
An administration that “did not play its role”
But the chain of responsibility seems broader. Page 6, the inspectors of the interregional management of the prison services of Marseille are also pinned down. The authors of the report criticize them for not “to worry” enough “not to be more informed of the evolution of a detained person in the sensitive criminal situation while his sentence was nearing the end”. Concretely, “they reacted only very partially, at the beginning of 2020, then belatedly two years later in January 2022” while“they should have carried out a more complete follow-up” opinions issued by the dangerousness commission of the prison.
The same criticisms are addressed to the counter-violent radicalization mission and the prison security sub-directorate of the central administration. The authors of the report accuse them of “not having fulfilled their role in terms of monitoring a TIS detainee”, that is to say considered as Islamist terrorist.