the aggressor explains his gesture by a “blasphemy towards God” of the Corsican separatist

The aggressor of Yvan Colonna explains his gesture by a “blasphemy against God” of the Corsican separatist, learned franceinfo Thursday March 3 from a source close to the investigation, confirming information from AFP. The national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office took up the investigation for “attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise”.

>> What we know about the prisoner who attacked Yvan Colonna

Yvan Colonna, sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac, was the victim of “strangulation with his bare hands and then suffocation” on Wednesday. The suspect is a 36-year-old man who was convicted in particular of “criminal association with a view to preparing an act of terrorism”, who knew Yvan Colonna and had played chess with him several times. He was filmed by the Arles prison CCTV cameras on Wednesday when he violently attacked Yvan Colonna in the gym while the latter was doing push-ups.

According to France Bleu Provence, the facts lasted less than four minutes. This detainee threw himself on the Corsican independence activist from behind, and gave him several violent kicks. Without the Corsican defending himself, the fellow prisoner turned him around, gave him a violent blow in the trachea and tried to suffocate him. The assailant then left the premises, knocked on the door and reported to the guards that Yvan Colonna had simply “fell unwell”.

A supervisor will then perform a cardiac massage to the prisoner, allowing his heart to start again. The Corsican shepherd, 61, sentenced to life for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac, has since been in a post-anoxic coma, that is to say a coma after oxygen deprivation. Hundreds of people gathered in several Corsican cities on Wednesday evening to support him. Thursday, 150 CRS and mobile gendarmes were sent to the island as reinforcements, according to a police source at franceinfo.