The adjustment of sentence granted to Pierre Alessandri, one of the members of the commando which assassinated the prefect Claude Erignac in 1998, begins this Monday. Concretely, he will be able to go out during the day and return to prison at night.
Detained for 24 years for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac, Pierre Alessandri will be able to leave Borgo prison freely. His semi-freedom regime, granted by the courts at the end of January, begins this Monday, February 13. Concretely, the man now 64 years old will be able to go out during the day and will have to return to sleep in prison at night.
Pierre Alessandri was sentenced in 2003 to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac accompanied by a security period of 22 years. This period ended in 2017, the date from which the one who was found guilty of having been part of the Erignac commando was released.
Three requests and many refusals
Since that date, Pierre Alessandri has made three requests for sentence adjustment. At the time, he was incarcerated in mainland France. His plan was then to return to his family in Corsica, to be able to work there and return to Borgo prison in the evening. Problem: Pierre Alessandri like Alain Ferrandi and Ivan Colonna were under the status of particularly reported prisoner.
His first requests for adjustment of sentence were then refused because of this status. Borgo prison is not equipped to accommodate this type of detainee, for whom surveillance measures are reinforced. For several consecutive years, a local commission had nevertheless come out in favor of lifting this status for Pierre Alessandri and Alain Ferrandi.
The violent attack that led to the death of Yvan Colonna by another detainee in the central prison in Arles accelerated things. On March 11, 2022, in the context of violent demonstrations in Corsica, the Prime Minister at the time Jean Castex announced the removal from the directory of “particularly reported detainees” of Pierre Alessandri and Alain Ferandi, thus paving the way for a transfer of the two detained towards Corsica. Mid-April, they left the penitentiary center of Poissy in the Yvelines to join that of Borgo.
“Principle of neutrality”
In the process, a new request for adjustment of sentence is filed by Pierre Alessandri. On May 12, the court for the application of anti-terrorist sentences granted him, but for the third time, the national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office appealed. The Court of Appeal had overturned the first instance decision, highlighting the risks of disturbances to public order” that a possible conditional release posed, and “the serious harm to the nation” that had been caused by the assassination of the prefect.
This judgment was overturned at the end of 2022 by the Court of Cassation considering that it was not sufficiently reasoned. On January 31, the Paris Court of Appeal, again seized of this request for adjustment of sentence, agreed with Pierre Alessandri. If for one year, the sexagenarian respects the modalities constituting his adjustment of sentence, he will benefit from a conditional release.
“We have an appeals court which for the first time applied strictly speaking the right without taking into account the political nature of this file, welcomed with BFMTV.com Me Éric Barbolosi, the lawyer of Alessandri. For the first time, the state adopted a principle of neutrality.”
A new decision expected for Alain Ferrandi
These various court decisions come in a context of renewed discussions between the government and the Corsican authorities. While the death of Yvan Colonna had provoked violent demonstrations on the island, tensions subsided with these negotiations. March 15, 2022, in the newspaper Corse-MorningInterior Minister Gérald Darmanin had announced that the government was “ready to go as far as autonomy”.
These discussions were to lead to a new status for Corsica in the summer of 2022. But since July 22, 2022 and the last visit of a member of the government to Corsica, the process has stalled. Two visits by Gérald Darmanin, in October and last December, were canceled “considering that the climate was not favorable to exchanges”. The “clandestine Corsican youth”, following in the footsteps of the FLNC, claimed responsibility for 17 attacks, as quoted by Le Figaro.
Present in Ajaccio on February 6 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Claude Erignac, the Minister of the Interior called for “writing a new page” in the history of relations between the island and the metropolis. A meeting in Beauvau on February 24 of the strategic committee on the institutional future of Corsica was proposed to Gilles Siméoni, president of the Executive Council of Corsica, and Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis, president of the Assembly of Corsica.
The day before, the court for the application of anti-terrorist sentences must deliver its decision on Alain Ferrandi’s third request for adjustment of sentence.
