Two Corsican nationalist activists were indicted in Paris and provisionally imprisoned on Friday in the investigation into the explosive destruction of a villa in November 2022 in Haute-Corse, we learned from sources close to the case.
These two activists, Anto Simoni and Nicolas Pinzuti, were arrested Tuesday in Bastia by the judicial police and the Anti-Terrorist Sub-Directorate (Sdat).
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.
Read alsoExplosions, fires: violent nationalism is back in Corsica
After several days in police custody, the two activists were presented Friday to a Parisian anti-terrorist investigating judge who indicted them for terrorist conspiracy, manufacturing an explosive device in connection with a terrorist enterprise and dangerous destruction in relationship with a terrorist company.
Subject to requests for placement in pre-trial detention, they requested a deferred debate from the judge of freedoms and detention who incarcerated them pending hearings, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
Their lawyers, Éric Barbolosi and Marc-Antoine Luca, did not wish to comment.
Members of the “Nazione” party
"We affirm that, concerning Corsican affairs, the separation of political and judicial powers is an absolute fable and that Tuesday's arrests were carried out by a political police under the orders of a political justice", reacted Friday in a press release the Nazione party, ensuring that the two activists are 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.
For them, the "concomitance" of these arrests with the announcement of the arrival of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin in Corsica is therefore "no coincidence" and shows "the clear desire to neutralize the only political current who publicly denounces the deception of the current discussions around the future of Corsica.
“Nazione calls for a gathering” on the occasion of Gérald Darmanin’s visit, we can still read in his press release.
This ministerial visit is scheduled for next week, probably February 7 or 8.