In an austere and moving tribute, under a fine drizzle that did not stop falling, Paris paid tribute this Sunday to the
former Puma Federico Martín Aramburu
, whose murder on Boulevard Saint-Germain at the hands of an extreme right militant has been one year old.
A few meters from the scene of the crime, at 146 of the legendary boulevard, relatives, friends and former colleagues of the former Argentine rugby player gathered to
remember the first anniversary of the shooting of Loïk Le Priol
(28 years old), the alleged perpetrator. of the crime provisionally detained awaiting trial.
"I feel the pain for the lack of Fede and the trauma.
My son was killed in the back,
" Cecilia Aramburu, who led the tribute to the former player of Club Atlético San Isidro, Biarritz Olympique and USAP Perpignan, told the press. , murdered when he was 42 years old.
He was the father of three children.
At the event, in addition to the mother of the former Argentine international (22 appearances with the Pumas jersey), the Argentine ambassador to France, Leonardo Costantino, and local authorities, including the Paris Sports Councilor and former rugby player, intervened. Pierre Rabadan.
Also participating in the tribute were rugby figures such as Serge Blanco -former president of Biarritz Olympique, the club with which Aramburu was proclaimed French champion on two occasions-, the Argentine coach Gonzalo Quesada, and the former president of the French Rugby Federation, Bernard Laporte.
"My son was killed from behind," recalled Aramburu's mother during the tribute.
Photo: EFE/Mohammed Badra.
The tribute, in which the widow of Aramburu was also present, ended with the reproduction of "Give joy to my heart", the song by Fito Páez.
In her speech, which she had to interrupt due to emotion, Cecilia Aramburu pointed out
the intolerant ideology of the extreme right
as the main reason for the murder of her son and regretted that both Le Priol and one of her accomplices, Romain Bouvier, acted with " total" freedom despite being registered by the police and that one of them was on probation.
"My son was
the victim of an execution
that never should have taken place," he stated.
For Ambassador Costantino, Aramburu -who since his retirement from rugby managed a tourist company in Biarritz- symbolized the friendship between Argentina and France and asked that "justice be done".
In the early hours of March 19, Aramburu, accompanied by his friend and former New Zealand player Shaun Hegarty, got into an argument at the Mabuillon restaurant with Le Priol -who was accompanied by his partner- and Bouvier.
Aramburu wore the Los Pumas jersey at the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. Photo: AP/Mark Baker.
Aramburu and Hegarty
would have come to the defense of a third person
who had asked for a cigarette and who had been treated badly by the two young extremists.
After xenophobic and racist comments by Le Priol and Bouvier, the tension increased and the Argentine, who also had French nationality, was shot by both, although the ones that caused his death were by Le Priol.
Le Priol, a former soldier and member of the ultra-right movement Grupo Unión Defensa (GUD), fled to Hungary after the events and was arrested in that country.
He and Bouvier are accused of "murder" and are in jail.
One of the two plaques discovered on Boulevard Saint-Germain denounces the ideological nature of the murder: "Let no family ever again suffer the loss of a loved one due to ideas and hatred rooted in fanaticism such as that of the extreme right ".