A provisional detention of José Anigo, former sports director of Olympique de Marseille indicted for participation in a criminal association with a view to preparing for extortion and intentional homicide in an organized gang, has been requested. Wednesday.
The Marseille prosecutor's office appealed against his placement under judicial supervision after his indictment on October 4.
Read also: Football - The prosecution appeals the placement under judicial supervision of José Anigo
Before the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, Advocate General Pierre Arpaia on Wednesday called for his placement in pre-trial detention
"as a safety measure".
Referring to
"people passed through the cracks of the police net and still wanted"
in this case, the Advocate General invoked
"a risk of pressure and reprisals on José Anigo".
But
"in the alternative",
Pierre Arpaia has not closed the door to keeping it under judicial control, on the condition that it includes reinforced obligations.
Present at the hearing, José Anigo, 59, assured the judges that he
“
does
not intend to evade justice”.
While evoking the death of his son Adrien, killed in a settling of scores in 2013, the former sports director and coach of OM was immediately overcome with emotion and gave up on explaining himself more before.
José Anigo, whose recruiting contract with the English club Nottingham Forest was not renewed at the beginning of October, finds himself at the heart of a case which, according to the attorney general,
"bears the imprint of local banditry".
He is suspected of having ceded to a Marseille criminal gang the charge of recovering a commission of 1.5 million euros that a nightclub manager in Aix-en-Provence owed him.
With the latter, José Anigo was responsible for the early career of young footballer Isaac Lihadji, whose transfer this summer to Lille (Ligue 1) was concluded after a contract of five million euros.
The sound of the apartment of a member of this criminal team specializing in extortion as well as wiretaps suggest to the police that the handover of this commission could aim to finance
"the logistics of a settlement project"
in order to avenge the death of Adrien Anigo.
Facts that José Anigo disputes, and suspicions which, according to his defender Me Emmanuel Molina,
"add to the great pain of what he is living, while he is the victim of the death of his son, a terrible tragedy" .
According to Me Molina, this file, in which 17 people were indicted, "
is of infinite complexity" and the accusation "is based on a sound system which is not corroborated, beyond police and judicial speculation. ".
The lawyer proposed a house arrest in France, under electronic surveillance, in a home
"located outside the Bouches-du-Rhône"
, even inviting the court to increase, "without limitation", the amount of the security initially set at 10,000 euros.
The investigative chamber will deliver its decision on October 28.
