Sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Claude Érignac in 1998, the Corsican independence activist Yvan Colonna was on Wednesday between life and death in a post-anoxic coma, following a deprivation of oxygen in the brain after a respiratory arrest coupled with a cardiac arrest, after being attacked by a fellow prisoner of the central house of Arles.
The facts took place in the morning while he was doing bodybuilding, alone, in a room of the establishment, when the latter, for reasons still unknown, attacked him. He was immediately taken into custody and an investigation was opened for murder.
Recognized as a model prisoner for 19 years, Yvan Colonna performed Wednesday morning, alone, a sports session in the weight room of the prison of Arles. A detainee who was providing cleaning services as a floor assistant threw himself on him with his bare hands, beat him, strangled him and then suffocated him. A scene of rare violence. He is a 36-year-old man of French nationality, originally from Cameroon, sentenced in 2015 to nine years in prison for “association of terrorist criminals”.
He left to do jihad in Afghanistan, he was arrested by American forces in 2012, then detained at the Bagram base, a town in Afghanistan located 60 km north of Kabul. His detention in France is marked by numerous violent episodes: attempted escape, attacks on personnel, franceinfo has learned.
Detained in the summer of 2019 in Condé-sur-Sarthe, one of the most secure prisons in France, he stood out for fourteen acts of violence, damage and the burning of his cell. The reasons that led him to attack Yvan Colonna are not known at this time. No incident in custody had been reported between the two men. The General Inspectorate of Justice was seized and the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office contacted, with regard to the background of the respondent.