In Marseille, a man killed by his fellow inmate at Baumettes prison

An inmate died at Baumettes prison, in Marseille, after being “attacked by his fellow inmate in their cell early Wednesday evening”a source close to the matter told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday, October 10. The victim was “attacked with a sharp object to the neck”specified this source, confirming information from BFM-TV. The prison administration in Marseille has confirmed a « incident » at Baumettes, “with a deceased person”.

The Marseille prosecutor’s office has opened a murder investigation. “At this stage, these facts seem to have originated in a disagreement between fellow prisoners and are not linked to recent events relating to conflicts between rival gangs against a backdrop of drug trafficking”he clarified.

According to another source close to the case, the attacker, aged 25, had been sentenced to six months in prison in a drug transport case and had been imprisoned in Baumettes since September. The inmate who died was 22 years old. He was in pre-trial detention, also since September, also for a drug case. Both men were detained in the arriving area.

One thousand inmates for a capacity of 700 places

“The supervisor (…)during his rounds at 7 p.m., did his usual check of the cells. He asked the detainees to unblock the peephole and observed a lot of blood.”told AFP the deputy regional secretary of the Prison Supervisors’ Union (SPS), Marc Bercan. Not seeing a body, the supervisor then asked the inmate where his fellow inmate was. “He’s on the ground”he replied, according to Mr. Bercan. The attacker was taken into custody around midnight.

The Baumettes remand center, which accommodates defendants in pre-trial detention or prisoners sentenced to short sentences, is located in the east of Marseille and, like many French prisons, is severely overcrowded. This explains why the two detainees were placed in the arriving section, one for a month and the other since the end of September, “even though we should stay there for ten to fifteen days maximum”selon M. Bercan.

“These are people who should have been assigned to construction. But there is no room! You have two, even three inmates per cell, whereas basically, they are individual cells”. “You have more inmates and fewer guards. There are many more incidents, insecurity and trafficking. In addition, we sprinkle it with the news that we are experiencing in Marseille… you have an explosive cocktail”lamented Mr. Bercan.

In Baumettes, the occupancy rate had exceeded 180% at the end of May, according to judicial and union sources. The establishment currently has more than a thousand inmates with a capacity of approximately seven hundred places. At 1^is September, prison overcrowding reached 127.3% nationally. The country is regularly condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for its chronic prison overcrowding, most recently in July.