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| Life for Corsica prefect murderer | |
| (30 minutes later) | |
| A French court has found a Corsican shepherd guilty of killing the top French official on the island in 1988. | A French court has found a Corsican shepherd guilty of killing the top French official on the island in 1988. |
| The court in Paris sentenced Yvan Colonna to life in jail for gunning down the governor of the Mediterranean island, Claude Erignac. | The court in Paris sentenced Yvan Colonna to life in jail for gunning down the governor of the Mediterranean island, Claude Erignac. |
| Colonna, 47, had denied playing any part in the killing - the most serious political murder in France in decades. | |
| Corsica has been the scene of a campaign of generally low-level separatist violence for three decades. | Corsica has been the scene of a campaign of generally low-level separatist violence for three decades. |
| Mr Erignac was shot three times in the back of the head as he walked to a concert hall in Corsica's capital, Ajaccio, in February 1998. The killing happened in front of the prefect's wife. | |
| Colonna has always denied pulling the trigger, but prosecutors successfully argued during the trial that there was enough circumstantial evidence. | |
| A lawyer for Colonna said he would appeal against the verdict, the AFP news agency reported. | |
| Colonna, portrayed by the separatists as a kind of Robin Hood figure, had been hiding for five years on Corsica, enjoying protection under the local code of omerta (silence). | Colonna, portrayed by the separatists as a kind of Robin Hood figure, had been hiding for five years on Corsica, enjoying protection under the local code of omerta (silence). |
| He was finally captured in a shepherd's hut in Porto-Pollo in 2003. | He was finally captured in a shepherd's hut in Porto-Pollo in 2003. |