The coordinator of ports and airports of the Chamber of Commerce of South Corsica, convicted in 2004 of murder, has been placed in pre-trial detention after trying to breach the security of Ajaccio airport with a weapon, the prosecutor's office said on Friday (November 10th).
On Tuesday morning, a .22 caliber long rifle handgun was discovered at the security screening of Ajaccio airport, hidden in Jean André Simonetti's hand luggage, the Ajaccio prosecutor's office told AFP, confirming a report by Corse-Matin.
Convicted of murder in 2004
This executive of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) is coordinator of the ports and airports of the CCI of South Corsica, the CCI confirmed to AFP. At the time of the discovery, Simonetti had left the scene before turning himself in to police "a few hours later," the prosecutor's office said. Placed in police custody, he has been summoned to appear before the Ajaccio Criminal Court on 22 December for illegal possession and transport of a category B weapon. "He had no authorisation or carrying a weapon," the prosecutor's office said.
He was brought before the detention and liberty judge on Thursday evening and remanded in custody until the hearing. His lawyer, Dominique Paolini, told AFP he had appealed against his pre-trial detention. In October 2004, Simonetti was sentenced along with another defendant, Jean-Pierre Bona, by the Special Assize Court of Paris to 13 years' imprisonment for the murder of a Corsican nationalist, Noël Sargentini, in August 1995, during the "fratricidal war" between two rival factions of Corsican nationalism: the Movement for Self-Determination (MPA) and the Cuncolta. The two men turned themselves in in January 2000.
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They were tried in October 2004 and convicted of the murder of Sargentini, as well as an attempt on his girlfriend Dominique Biancardini. On 31 August 1995, Jean-Pierre Bona and Jean André Simonetti, MPA activists, had crossed paths at a very slow speed on a road in Corte (Haute-Corse) with Dominique Biancardini and Noël Sargentini. The first two explained that they detected "provocative gestures" in the attitude of the latter. They had stopped, got out of the car, armed, to talk. Then the shooting broke out. The defence of the two men had argued self-defence and pleaded for acquittal.