Jacques Mariani, a figure in Corsican banditry, was indicted in the investigation into the attempted escape from prison of the multi-repeat robber Redoine Faïd, we learned Tuesday, June 9, from a judicial source.
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The heir to the criminal gang La Brise de mer was indicted twice on Monday for "criminal association" by a Paris investigating judge, for the acquisition or possession of a category A or B weapon in meetings, as well as for attempted escape in an organized gang. The acts alleged against Mr. Mariani were allegedly committed during the year 2017 when he was in a repeat offense, according to a source familiar with the matter.
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After an unfulfilled plan to escape Rédoine Faïd from Fresnes prison (Val-de-Marne) that year, on July 1, 2018 an armed commando had been placed by helicopter in the courtyard of the prison center of Réau (Seine-et-Marne). Dressed in black, hooded, two men equipped with Kalashnikov-type assault rifles had emerged from the aircraft before recovering Faïd. The latter was serving his sentence after his conviction for a failed robbery in Val-de-Marne which had cost the life in 2010 to municipal policewoman Aurélie Fouquet.
The accent that never fails
After three months on the run, the robber was arrested on October 3, 2018 with several relatives, including his brother Rachid, in an apartment in Creil (Oise). Jacques Mariani was extracted last week from his cell in the Baumettes prison in Marseille to be heard by the Brigade for the Suppression of Banditry in Versailles. These indictments on Monday were accompanied by a placement in pre-trial detention, said the judicial source. It is a testimony obtained at the end of 2019 which put the investigators on this track, detailed the Obs, which had revealed the placement in police custody.
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A man suspected of having taken part in the scaffolding of a plan to escape Redoine Faïd, told investigators that a man with a Corsican accent was present. While other witnesses told of the links between Jacques Mariani, in prison at the time of the events, and the entourage of the robber. These are the elements that led the investigators to make connections and led to the placement in police custody of Jacques Mariani - notably sentenced in 2008 to 15 years' imprisonment for murder - to verify if this Corsica is not one of his knowledge, details the newspaper.
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