Latest update: 18/02/2009 

- Corsica - crime - France


Suspected assassin's lawyers move for appeal
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Lawyers for Yvan Colonna, accused of assassinating Corsica's prefect on Feb. 6, 1998, are to present their grounds for release in a French court on Monday.
Philip CROWTHER (video)

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On Friday, Didier Vinolas, one of Prefect Claude Erignac's former associates, took the witness stand in the appeal case for France's most notorious living assassins, Yvan Colonna.

Erignac is the state-appointed prefect Colonna is accused of murdering.

Vinolas said that two suspects possibly involved in the assassination were still on the loose.

Vinolas didn't share their names with the court, but said he had gotten them from a mysterious informant in September 2002 and had passed on the information to the prosecutor only days later.  But the new elements were never added to Colonna's file.

Yvan Colonna has always proclaimed his innocence.  His lawyers say people never wanted to see the truth. On Monday, he will ask the courts to release him.

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