The day after his attack by a fellow prisoner in Arles prison (Bouches-du-Rhône), the Corsican independence activist Yvan Colonna was still Thursday morning in a coma in Marseille, in stable condition, we learned from from one of his lawyers.
"No improvement or deterioration," said Me Patrice Spinosi, his lawyer and that of the Colonna family, insisting that he was not brain dead.
On Wednesday evening, the Tarascon prosecutor's office indicated that he was in a post-anoxic coma, a type of coma resulting from oxygen deprivation in the brain.
Yvan Colonna was assaulted on Wednesday by an inmate convicted of terrorism while he was doing bodybuilding alone, the victim of "strangulation with his bare hands then suffocation", according to Tarascon prosecutor Laurent Gumbau.
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"We are obviously going to do everything necessary for the truth to be revealed about this attack on Mr. Colonna", assured Thursday on France Inter the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, noting the "tempered remarks" of the elected officials Corsican "despite the difficulties".
Darmanin has "a thought" for the Colonna and Erignac families
“I obviously believe that everyone is very shocked by this story.
I want to have a thought for the family of Mr. Colonna, I also want as Minister of the Interior to have a thought for Mrs. Erignac and the Erignac family, ”he added.
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Colonna trial: the defense attacks the police
The anger was quickly expressed from Corsica where his rapprochement in a prison on the island had been requested for a long time.
Requests made primarily by Yvan Colonna who is placed under the status of “particularly reported detainee” (DPS), which prevents him from being imprisoned in the Corsican prison of Borgo, but which have all been refused.
“The state was legally responsible for Yvan Colonna's safety.
If he dies, the prison administration and the entire political hierarchy on which it depends will have to be held to account,” his family said on Wednesday.
The president of the executive council of Corsica Gilles Simeoni also considered that the State bears "an overwhelming responsibility" in this aggression.
Read alsoYvan Colonna seriously injured in prison: his attacker “known to be a very dangerous inmate”
Now 61, the shepherd and independence activist was arrested in July 2003 for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac, after four years on the run in the Corsican maquis.
Sentenced to life imprisonment, he has always denied the facts.
His attacker is in police custody as part of an investigation by the judicial police for "attempted murder".