Bodies exhumed and found in pieces in the maquis instead of being cremated: Tuesday, December 6, the Bastia prosecutor's office requested a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 5,000 euros against an undertaker, for "attacking the 'integrity of corpses'.
“
The case is particularly serious, with an attack on the respect due to the dead
,” insisted the public prosecutor.
The case began in April, with the discovery of seven coffins and human bones hidden in garbage bags, in the middle of a wild dump below a steep road in the village of Bigorno, in Haute-Corse.
The gendarmerie's investigation had then made the link between the bones and a request for exhumation made to a funeral director for a family vault in a neighboring village, in order to proceed with a cremation.
“I did not see the bones in the coffins”
Eight months later, the manager of the company thus appeared before the criminal court of Bastia, alongside one of its subcontractors, the two men referring responsibility for the facts.
“
Who filled the garbage bags?
Who was aware of the content?
Who knew what they would become?
The versions diverge.
And they did anything with the mission entrusted
, “launched the prosecutor at the hearing.
Against the manager, the latter requested a six-month suspended prison sentence, a fine of 5,000 euros and a ban on practicing a profession related to the funeral, for "harming the integrity of a corpse" and “breach of trust”.
For the subcontractor, she asked for a fine of 5,000 euros for "harming the integrity of a corpse".
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Before the magistrates, the undertaker, already sentenced to a six-month suspended prison sentence for “extortion by threat or coercion” and a one-year suspended prison sentence for “breach of trust”, pleaded good faith.
“
I did not see the bones in the coffins.
(...) I still wonder how it is possible.
For me the coffin was empty
, ”he said on the stand.
The other defendant, a professional security officer with a clean record, has no more explanation for the presence of the bones, some of which are however thirty centimeters.
Officially employed that day for masonry work, he assured that he had taken the garbage bags without knowing that there were bodies inside: "
I threw everything into the maquis knowing that it was not was not legal
,” he said.
Defense lawyers pleaded for release.
The decision was reserved for January 10.
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