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French court sentences Yvan Colonna to life imprisonment

Friday, 14 December 2007

French court sentences Yvan Colonna to life imprisonment

A French court in Paris has found Yvan Colonna, a Corsican shepherd, guilty of the charge of murdering Claude Erignac, who was a top French official, on the island of Corsica in 1998.

The court has sentenced Yvan Colonna, 47, to life imprisonment for shooting Claude Erignac, who was the governor of the Mediterranean island.

Yvan Colonna had denied the killing, which was seen as the most serious political murder in France in very many years.

The murdered man, Claude Erignac, was shot three times in the back of the head whilst walking to a concert hall in the Corsican capital of Ajaccio, in February 1998.

Yvan Colonna had been considered a kind of Robin Hood figure by Corsican separatists, and he had been successfully hiding for five years on the island, until he was caught in Porto-Pollo in 2003.

A lawyer for Yvan Colonna said his client would appeal against the verdict.

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