Patrick Balkany was released from prison last night around 6 p.m. Three hours earlier, the Paris Court of Appeal had granted the final request for the release of the mayor of Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine), who will have spent five months in detention, in a cell of the Health remand center.
As soon as the decision was announced, Isabelle Balkany rushed to the prison of health to "recover [her] guy", as she said when arriving there.
After six requests for release refused, it is the alarming state of health of Patrick Balkany which explains the turnaround of the court of appeal. A medical report, delivered Monday and exposed Tuesday, at the trial of Levallois 'husbands' appeal for laundering of aggravated tax fraud, "notes the deterioration in the state of health [of Patrick Balkany] hardly compatible with his continued detention", as recalled by the president of the court, Sophie Clément. The court therefore granted Patrick Balkany his release "on medical grounds".
The deposit of 500,000 euros removed
He was imprisoned after his five-year solid conviction for laundering tax evasion, but also after his four-year conviction for tax evasion, which led him to prison on September 13. In this section, his release had been granted to him at the end of October, on condition of paying a bond of 500,000 euros. The court finally decided to delete it.
Life outside the walls of Patrick Balkany is nevertheless subject to obligations imposed within the framework of a judicial control: prohibition to leave France, reside in his home in Giverny (Eure) and report to the gendarmerie twice a month.
PODCAST. The Balkany, put to the test of prison
But he is no longer prohibited from going to Levallois-Perret, as required by the Court of Appeal, at the same time as the condition of payment of the deposit. Nothing therefore prevents the still mayor of Levallois from returning to his city. In theory, he could even chair the last municipal council in his mandate, this Thursday.
"He just wants to go home"
But the man is very weak, has lost thirty kilos, suffers from serious pathologies, in particular following the infarction of the intestine which led him from prison to hospital, in emergency, on December 12 last.
Hauts-de-Seine Newsletter
Every morning, the news of your department seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
"He just wants to go home, to rest, to take care of himself, to be with his wife and his grandchildren," pleaded his lawyer, Me Romain Dieudonné, returning to his client's "very serious" state of health. . “I hope he will be by my side, not in a wheelchair, when you deliver your deliberations on March 4 and April 22. "
It now seems unlikely that the court will send Patrick Balkany behind bars. For the medical expert, "multidisciplinary medical care" is essential. The specialist even mentioned the vital prognosis of the elected representative, compromised in the medium term if he is insufficiently treated.
"Endearing" and "maddening"
On April 22, the decision on the laundering of tax fraud will be rendered. Last Tuesday, the public prosecutor's office requested five years in prison, one of which was suspended, for Patrick Balkany, without a warrant, and four, half of which was suspended, against his wife.
This trial ended this Wednesday noon on these words of Isabelle Balkany: "I would like to live a little longer with him and there, I feel that I must be there".
His lawyer, Pierre-Olivier Sur, had just pleaded for his client "extraordinarily endearing", "also infuriating". Allusion to the outbursts of Isabelle Balkany, vehement at times, refusing to answer questions to others, absent from the hearings when she had spoken with her husband. But ubiquitous on TV sets.
This annoyed the magistrates, as noted by one of the Advocates General in his requisitions, Tuesday evening, regretting that she "reserved most of her energy in the media court". "Her husband is dying in prison, political life is over, that of her children is screwed up because of the procedure, we can understand" concluded Mr. Sur.
