6:10 a.m., March 19, 2022, Paris. The former Argentine rugby international Federico Martin Aramburu lies on the asphalt of Boulevard Saint-Germainhit by six gunshots, three of them in the back. At his side, his Irish partner Shaun Hegarty, also a former rugby player, was unharmed. He saw his best friend die before his eyes, with whom he had set up a travel agency specializing in rugby in the Basque Country. The two men who fired, Loïk Le Priol and Romain Bouvier, 28 and 31 years old, two former GUD activists on file S for their membership in the violent far-right, fled, one on foot, the other by car.
They were arrested a few days later by the Paris Criminal Brigade and charged with “murder” by two investigating judges. Loïk Le Priol’s partner, who accompanied the duo that evening and helped them escape, was also charged with “complicity in murder”.
According to information from RTL, the magistrates have now completed their investigations and the various parties, suspects and victims, received the notice of end of investigation at the end of last week. Everyone now has one month to make any observations or additional requests. The Paris prosecutor’s office has the same deadline to submit its requisitions and say, in particular, whether it is requesting a trial for “assassination”, in view of the elements of the file.
Defense denies intent to kill
The qualification is strongly contested by the lawyers of the two defendants, Xavier Nogueras and Hugues Vigier who believe that Loïk Le Priol and Romain Bouvier did not intend to kill when they set out in pursuit of the two rugby players in the Odéon district, after a first fight on the terrace of Mabillon, a night bar where the two groups ended their evening before starting to insult each other and come to blows for a trivial reason. Me Vigier, contacted by RTL, announces his intention to file a request for dismissal of the charge of “assassination” and the reclassification as intentional violence with weapons.
On the exact opposite side, the counsels of Federico Aramburu and Shaun Hegarty, Yann Le Bras and Christophe Cariou-Martin, have constantly stressed that Romain Bouvier fired four bullets in four seconds towards Federico Aramburu, at eye level, two of which injured him, and Loïk le Priol six bullets in four seconds, three of which were fatal in the back. Which, for them, leaves no doubt about the desire to kill.
The video surveillance images recorded by the cameras on Boulevard Saint-Germain are also the subject of heated discussions. Lawyers for Le Priol and Bouvier say they show that the two suspects felt threatened and fired to defend themselves. Notably Loïk Le Priol, former member of the French special forces, who apparently saw red while Federico Aramburu, injured by the first two bullets fired by Romain Bouvier, tried to hit him. A scenario swept aside by the civil parties which emphasizes the precision of the shots, their speed and the escape which followed.
Long awaited, a first psychiatric assessment initially concluded that Loïk Le Priol presented a certain impairment of discernment due to his war traumabut that this did not mitigate his responsibility in the facts. Conclusions refuted by a counter-expertise rendered in the spring which does not retain any mitigation. A request for nullity, filed by the defense of the former soldier engaged in 2014 and 2015 in the Sahel, is still pending.
Potentially lethal weapons found at Romain Bouvier’s home
What is not disputed is that the two shooters met in the 2010s within the GUD, a far-right student union accustomed to violent actions, where they notably met Julien Rochedy, former leader of the National Youth Front. Loïk Le Priol and Romain Bouvier were also banned from meeting and carrying a weapon in connection with violence committed together in 201. They each had one on their belt on the evening of the tragedy, “to protect themselves”, they would say.
At Romain Bouvier’s home, the police found a copy of My Struggleand many collector’s weapons, without a license required, but potentially lethal for some.
During the tribute organized at the time of the commemorations of March 19, 2023, the rugby player’s mother, Cécilia Aramburu, who came specially from Argentina, denounced in front of the plaque installed on Boulevard Saint-Germain “the irrational and characteristic hatred of the extreme right towards everything it considers different from itself”.
Federico Aramburu, a long-time player at Biarritz Olympique, had settled permanently with his widow Maria and their three children in the Basque Country, out of love for France and in particular for this region, the land of Ovalie. The trial, if it had to be in fine decided by the magistrates, will not take place before 2025.
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