“Once again, Islamist fanaticism is behind a terrorist crime in our country,” announced Jean-François Ricard, public prosecutor at the head of the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat), during a press conference in Paris on Sunday March 6.
On Wednesday March 2, in the morning, Yvan Colonna, a 61-year-old prisoner in Arles prison (Bouches-du-Rhône), was the victim of a violent attack by a fellow prisoner, Franck Elong Abé. Sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect of Corsica, Claude Erignac, in 1998, Yvan Colonna is still, Sunday, March 6, in a coma, confirmed the prosecutor.
While around 4000 people gathered to support Yvan Colonna in Corte (Haute-Corse), Sunday March 6, franceinfo returns to the main announcements of the prosecutor this Sunday.
The prosecutor opens a judicial investigation
A judicial inquiry will be opened for “attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise” and “terrorist association of criminals”announced the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor on Sunday.
The investigation will focus on “retrace with the greatest meticulousness the course in detention” of the aggressor, “determine all of his contacts, in particular among people who share his ideology” and “clarify the possible interactions (…) likely to have played a role in the facts”said Jean-François Ricard.
From Thursday March 3, the Pnat seized the facts for three reasons, explains the prosecutor. First, because of the violence of the facts, with a “duration which testifies to a proven and repeated homicidal intention of the alleged perpetrator”. Next, “I’exclusion of any reason other than that resulting from an extremist religious conception”. Finally, the pcourse of the person concerned, a supporter of radical Islamism. Since 2014, Franck Elong Abé, 35, has been sentenced to several sentences for having carried out “atarmed actions alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan during 2011-2012″. He was arrested at a border crossing in October 2012, then returned to France in May 2014 before being tried in 2016.
Eight minutes of blows and suffocation
Retracing minute by minute the course of the attack on Wednesday morning, the prosecutor said that “the systematic relentlessness deployed by the respondent” didn’t let “only few doubts about his homicidal intent”.
According to the sequence of events drawn up by Jean-François Ricard, on March 2, 2022, at 8 a.m., Yvan Colonna went to a gym for his daily morning ritual. At 8:30 a.m., the inmate who was accompanying him went back to the cell. Yvan Colonna then continued, “Alone”his sporting activities. “With each inmate movement, the activity rooms are opened and closed” key, says the prosecutor.
Since September 2021, every day between 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m., Franck Elong Abe is in charge of cleaning the sports halls. The supervisor let him do his job and positioned himself “between the two wings he had to control”. Shortly before 10:25 a.m. Franck Elong Abe, at the entrance to the gym, grabbed a supervisor, indicating that “Yvan felt unwell“Other supervisors and then caregivers intervened, while “Franck Elong Abé pretended to help the various stakeholders before being taken back to the cell”.
What happened between 10:10 a.m. and 10:25 a.m.? Thanks to recordings from the gym’s surveillance camera, the “reality” could be demonstrated. At 10:13 a.m., Franck Elong Abe entered the gym, while Yvan Colonna was doing floor exercises. He changed a garbage bag and, thirty seconds later, “Franck Elong Abe rushed on Yvan Colonna and brutally jumped on his back”. For more than 8 minutes, violent blows were carried out by Franck Elong Abe who “implemented strangulation and suffocation techniques, including using trash bags and towels.”
The attacker has already been violent in prison
Until the attack, the two men had already rubbed shoulders, especially during sports activities. But thn police custody, Franck Elong Abé acknowledged the facts and “explained in such a way reiterated his act with what he considered ‘blasphemies'” stated by Yvan Colonna. During the days preceding the attack, the latter allegedly, according to the attacker, said that he “spit on God”.
Although “the investigations are just beginning”the prosecutor points out that during his detention, Franck Elong Abé has, “repeatedly expressed his radical ideology” with other inmates. He talked about “unbelievers”welcoming certain attacks, including the assassination of the teacher Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines) in October 2020.
Yvan Colonna’s attack is not the first for Franck Elong Abé, who has already had “coviolent behavior towards other people and himself”, notes the prosecutor. “Multiple disciplinary incidents marred his detention” in the first five establishments he went to.
The custody of Franck Elong Abe lifting
The police custody of Yvan Colonna’s attacker was lifted on Sunday. The prosecution will request the indictment of Franck Elong Abé and his placement in pre-trial detention, said Jean-François Ricard.
Since his arrival in Arles in October 2019, he had gone through different regimes: the isolation ward until April 2020, then a specific integration ward, before being placed in ordinary detention for a year, while maintaining the statust of a particularly guarded prisoner. His end of sentence was scheduled for December 2023.
Yvan Colonna is still in a coma
The Corsican independence activist, sentenced for having killed the prefect Erignac in 1998,
is in a coma. His vital prognosis is, at this time, “always engaged”, also indicated the prosecutor. Yvan Colonna had been discovered by the supervisors in cardio-respiratory arrest. The caregivers at the center gave him a cardiac massage, then injected adrenaline, before the Samu, then the hospital, continued the treatment.