Detailed, precise and heartbreaking.
A man living at the corner of boulevard Saint-Germain and rue de Buci has just given edifying testimony on the murder of former rugby player Federico Martim Aramburu, 42.
On March 19, in the still sleepy streets of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, this individual was awakened by cries and opened the window.
The beginning of a rise to horror in two acts that he agreed to describe to the newspaper L'Equipe this Wednesday.
It is 5:55 a.m. when a first altercation breaks out.
Aramburu is seated on the terrace of a chic establishment on rue Mabillon alongside his friend and former Biarritz Olympique partner Shaun Hegarty.
They are preparing in a few hours to attend the long-awaited Crunch between France and England.
According to the latter's lawyer, the two Basques take the side of a third person snubbed by three people (including the main suspect Loïc Le Priol) whom he allegedly asked for a fire.
The tone rises and the two groups are separated by bouncers after a "hyperviolent" fight.
“Aramburu got busted but he never returned the blows.
Shaun Hegarty and Federico Martin Aramburu must have said to themselves:
"We ran into two morons, they're in their twenties, they're drunk
- it must have happened to them 20 times in their lives -
come on, let's break up, we're going back to the hotel !
(…)
It's so violent, determined, and the man on the ground doesn't react so much, that for a fraction of a second I tell myself that he must have screwed up and that he ''accepts'' to take a scraped”.
It was near this night establishment, at 146 bd Saint Germain, that Federico Martin Aramburu was killed.
LP/Julien Constant
The scramble will then move outside the bar.
It was at this precise moment that the witness felt that the situation could degenerate.
“At one point, the two guys (the suspects) are pushed back into the rue de Buci.
There, I remember seeing a guy holding Le Priol trying to pull something out of his pocket several times!
I wanted to scream, I didn't.
I said to myself “they will take me for a psycho”.
I said to myself at worst it's a knife.
Fights, I've seen some, but this is weird, it's the first time I had the feeling that it could go further.
He (the suspected attacker) seemed so determined.
No one seemed able to calm him down.
“They were friendly, they just asked for ice cubes explaining that they had fought not very far away”
Aramburu and Hegarty still manage to extricate themselves from the confusion and walk towards a hotel.
They ask for ice cubes to heal their swollen faces.
"You know, we night watchmen, every night, we have guys who come to ask us for water, alcohol, cigarettes sometimes they are violent, a little aggressive, will tell in a car towards the court a second witness, called by the first.
There, they were friendly, they just asked for ice cubes, explaining that they had fought not very far away”.
Seconds later, six shots ring out.
Aramburu is hit several times and dies on the pavement despite the rapid arrival of help.
Read alsoDeath of Federico Martin Aramburu: emotion and meditation at the funeral of the ex-rugby player
As a reminder, the main suspect Loïc Le Priol was extradited from Hungary to France and imprisoned on April 1.
This 27-year-old ultra-right activist, with an S file and known for his past at the Union Defense Group (GUD), is indicted for "assassination".
Just like his friend Romain Bouvier, who also used a firearm.
Le Priol's companion, driving the Jeep with which they found Aramburu and Hegarty, is indicted for "complicity in murder".