inmate stabbed to death in fight
A violent fight between prisoners broke out on Wednesday morning in the prison of Avignon-le-Pontet. One of them was reportedly stabbed to death.
It was during a walk of prisoners that broke out this morning around 8 a.m., a “violent fight” in the prison of Avignon-le-Pontet, we informed the FO Justice union.
“An inmate was stabbed to death“, specified Jessy Zagari, regional delegate FO Justice PACA-Corsica. Despite the first aid gestures he received, the inmate died of his injuries.
The Avignon prosecutor Florence Galtier went to the scene and indicated that “circumstances [étaient] yet to be determined“.
For the FO Justice union, this is the fourth episode of violence since July 25, when an inmate violently attacked a prison officer. The union warns of the shortage of prison staff in the prison.
This deadly altercation is part of a particular context, while the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti visited this morning the extension site of the Baumettes prison in Marseille.
“It’s an absolute tragedy, the death of a young man is always a tragedy”declared the Minister of Justice, during a press briefing. “The police are on the spot”he specified, suppose that his statute of Minister for Justice does not allow him to comment on the business, nor to go on the spot.
In place of the historic stone building now destroyed, a new remand center with 740 places should be built in Marseille by 2025 alongside a first extension of 1,182 places, “Baumettes 2”, opened in 2018.
It was in this last building that on the night of Sunday to Monday, a prisoner in his thirties was seriously burned in the fire in his cell.
The Baumettes site “is part of the (national) construction plan for 15,000 places” in prison, further detailed Eric Dupond-Moretti.
“Regularly we are condemned because of the unworthy conditions of detention (of) and we make a considerable effort to get out of this”by building new establishments or renovating existing ones, he defended himself.
As of August 1, 816 men and 106 women were imprisoned at Baumettes. Prison overcrowding is chronic in France where the number of detainees continues to grow with 72,067 people incarcerated on July 1, nearly 2,000 more than four months ago, according to statistical data from the Ministry of Justice.
In Arles prison, this Thursday, the Ufap Unsa Justice union called for the blocking of the central house, where Yvan Colonna was assassinated. They want to protest against the disciplinary proceedings announced against a supervisor of the establishment.