Antò Simoni, a Corsican nationalist activist, was placed in pre-trial detention on Wednesday in an investigation into the explosive damage to a villa in November 2022 in Haute-Corse, AFP learned Thursday from judicial sources close to the case.
Anto Simoni and another activist, Nicolas Pinzuti, were arrested on Tuesday January 30 in Bastia by the judicial police and the Anti-Terrorism Sub-Directorate (Sdat).
After several days in police custody, the two activists were indicted by a Parisian anti-terrorist investigating judge for terrorist conspiracy, manufacturing an explosive device in relation to a terrorist enterprise and dangerous destruction in relation to a terrorist enterprise.
Being the subject of requests for placement in pre-trial detention, they had requested a deferred debate from the judge of freedoms and detention (JLD) who had incarcerated them pending hearings on Wednesday afternoon.
“Following the deferred debates, the JLD decided to place one of the indictees in pre-trial detention and to place the other indicted person under judicial supervision
,” a judicial source indicated on Thursday.
According to a source close to the case, it was Antò Simoni who was imprisoned while Nicolas Pinzuti was released.
An “FNLC” inscription
These arrests took place as part of a judicial investigation into the damage to an unoccupied villa on the night of November 19 to 20, 2022 in Santa-Maria di Lota (Haute-Corse).
That night, explosions also hit two houses in Olmeto (Southern Corsica) and an inscription
“FLNC”
(Corsican National Liberation Front, clandestine independence movement) was found on one of the two.
These arrests
“were carried out by political police under the orders of political justice
,” the Nazione party denounced in a press release on Friday, assuring that the two activists were among its members.
Nazione (Nation), a new Corsican independence party favorable to armed struggle, was born on January 28 in Corte, in Upper Corsica, and absorbed in particular the separatists of Corsica Libera which disappeared as a party.