Yvan Colonna

Yvan Colonna (born April 7, 1960 in Ajaccio in Corsica ) is a Corsican nationalist who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of the then prefect of the Corsican department of Corse-du-Sud Claude Érignac.

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Yvan Colonna grew up in Corsica until his family moved to Nice . His father, Jean-Hugues Colonna , was a member of the Parti socialiste (PS) for the Alpes-Maritimes department .

After graduating from high school, Colonna studied sports science to become a sports teacher. In 1981 he returned to Corsica after dropping out of college. In Corsica, Colonna devoted herself to goat breeding and joined a militant nationalist group close to the FLNC . However, Colonna could never be proven to be involved in terrorist attacks in Corsica.

The assassination of the Prefect Érignac

On February 6, 1998, the then Prefect of Corse-du-Sud , Claude Érignac, was shot dead in the street in Ajaccio with three 9 mm bullets. The weapon from which these bullets were fired had also been used in an attack on a gendarmerie post in Pietrosella two years earlier.

In the course of the investigation that followed Érignac's murder, several suspects were arrested and interrogated who accused Yvan Colonna of the crime, but who later all revoked these statements. Before the police could arrest Colonna, he had already fled. This escape triggered the largest manhunt in the history of the French judiciary, but initially unsuccessful. At times it was assumed that Colonna had fled to South America, but finally the police were able to locate his whereabouts in the Corsican mountains near Olmeto using images from an infrared camera. Yvan Colonna was arrested on June 4, 2003.

From November 12th to December 12th 2007 he was tried in Paris . On the basis of evidence, Colonna was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison . Colonna himself repeatedly protested his innocence during and after the trial. The process was followed by numerous human rights organizations.

Web links

• Homepage of Yvan Colonna