His escape lasted four days. Loïk Le Priol, identified as the main suspect in the murder of former rugby player Federico Martin Aramburu, was arrested in Hungary on Wednesday March 23, France Télévisions learned from the Paris prosecutor’s office. This 27-year-old ultra-right activist was seeking to join Ukraine, according to information from franceinfo. While a European arrest warrant had been issued against him, he was arrested during a border control by the Hungarian police.
The young man is suspected of having shot the ex-Biarritz player six times, on the night of Friday March 18 to Saturday March 19, after an altercation in a Parisian bar. Iformer argentina international, hit by at least five bullets, according to France Bleu, died on the spot. Franceinfo looks back on the journey of his alleged murderer, a former member of the GUD, an ultraviolent far-right group, already involved in several legal cases.
A former soldier discharged from the army
Loïk Le Priol was 16 when he joined the Moss School in Brest in 2010, which trains the soldiers of the National Navy, reports Mediapart (paid item). After this one-year training, he spent five years in the army, assigned to the Montfort marine commando, in Lorient, between 2011 and 2016.
He then participated in several external operations in Mali and Djibouti between 2013 and 2015, before being repatriated to France in July 2015, reports the StreetPress site. according to un expert psychiatrist, this state of post-traumatic stress was “at the origin of anxieties, reliving of scenes experienced and nightmares”details Marianne (paid item)which would have led to a heavy consumption of alcohol.
Still in 2015, Loik Le Priol is implicated for having hit a prostitute when he was in Djibouti, according to Marianne. He was finally dismissed from the army in 2017 for disciplinary reasons, after beating up a former leader of the GUD, an ultra-right movement.
A figure of the ultra-right
The young man has long been an activist in the GUD (Union Defense Group), a movement with very violent methods. Slicked back blond hair, knife tattoo on his left forearm, he stood out in 2016 with the launch of a clothing brand called “Babtou solid”, in reference to the nickname given to Europeans in Africa. “Since I was little, I have heard this expression of ‘babtous fragile’ to talk about the weak, effeminate people. We decided to do the opposite to value people who are virile”he then explained to StreetPress, who had met him.
These clothes have met with great success in the ultra-right movement. Youtubers and identity figures like Baptiste Marchais and Julien Rochedy had posed with his t-shirts. On Twitter, the latter, former president of the National Youth Front, designates Loïk Le Priol as “a buddy” that he was close to “circa 2012-2014”. “Those who knew Loïk all thought he had calmed down. He had always been cracked, he was followed by an army shrink, but the last time I saw him in Paris he had a girlfriend, projects, seemed at peace. We were happy ‘that he was better’…”writes Julien Rochedy on the social network.
The kings of #padamalgam in all circumstances are all unleashed against me since yesterday as if I were Le Priol’s best friend, as if I were validating his actions in one way or another, and seem to really enjoy this association that they are forcing with perversity.
— Julien Rochedy (@JRochedy) March 22, 2022
As evidenced by photos published by StreetPress, Loïk Le Priol also displayed himself with figures from the “fachosphere”, such as Jean-Eudes Gannat, boss of a small identity group in Angers, the Alvarium, which was dissolved. in November 2021, or even Jean-Romée Charbonneau, candidate of the National Rally for municipal elections in Niort (Deux-Sèvres) in 2020.
A heavy legal liability
The nationalist activist has already been sentenced at the age of 19 for violence, then to 23 years to four months in prison suspended for intentional violence in a meeting and drunk driving, according to information from Marianne. At the time of the murder of Federico Martin Aramburu on Saturday morning, Loïk Le Priol was under judicial supervision and had, according to information from Release, ban on going to Paris and getting in touch with the man suspected of being his accomplice, Romain Bouvier. The latter, also active on the far right and who would also have shot the ex-rugby player, was arrested on Wednesday in Sarthe by the BRI.
Both are involved in a case of violence in meetings against a former leader of the GUD, Edward Klein. In October 2015, the two men, accompanied by Logan Djian, who had succeeded Edouard Klein at the head of the ultra-right movement, and two other accomplices, had beaten and humiliated him. This torture session, some images of which were revealed by Mediapart, had been entirely filmed by Loïk Le Priol. On the videos, the suspect insults Edouard Klein, forces him to undress and encourages the other attackers to beat him. While the victim is naked on the ground and covered in blood, he pulls out a knife and puts it to his throat. “You know I killed more than one of the guys there, you know that?”throws the former soldier at him while the young man begs him to stop.
“For a long time, he had been known as an individual of unbridled violence. (…) Priol was known to be particularly uncontrollable, including with his own comrades.”
Jean-Yves Camus, political scientist specializing in the far rightat AFP
After two dismissals, the five alleged attackers must appear on June 1 next before the criminal court for “aggravated violence” with ITT greater than 8 days, committed in a meeting, under the threat of a weapon, with premeditation. Facts for which some (recidivists) incur up to ten years in prison.