A couple indicted in early February and remanded in custody after the death of their 4-month-old baby, who presented with significant injuries, was released on Friday for “procedural reasons”, we learned from the Bastia prosecutor.
The father was indicted in early February for “aggravated intentional homicide” and “aggravated violence”, while the mother was indicted for “aggravated violence, failure to report ill-treatment on a 15-year-old minor and failure to provide assistance to anyone. in aggravated danger “, after the death of their baby in the hospital of Nice following his transfer from Corsica.
“No impact on the progress of the judicial investigation”
Both had been placed in detention by the judge of freedoms and detention, after the opening of a judicial investigation entrusted to an investigating judge.
“The release decision is linked to procedural reasons,” said Arnaud Viornery, public prosecutor of Bastia, specifying that “on the merits, this decision has no impact on the conduct of the judicial information “.
According to a source familiar with the matter, the detention had been appealed to the investigative chamber of the court of appeal, which confirmed the detention but in a decision taken out of time, leading the prosecution. general to order the release of the parents.
The father’s lawyer points to an “absence of scientific foundations”
“The release of my client is directly related to our appeal to the Court of Cassation against the decision of the investigative chamber”, for his part, said the lawyer of the father, Me Grégoire Etrillard.
“We continue to fight to demonstrate the innocence of our client and the errors of the recommendations of the High Authority for Health on the shaken baby syndrome which is the basis of this unfair procedure”, he added, pointing to an “absence a solid scientific basis for the accusation of abuse “.
Me Anna-Livia Guerrini, who defends the mother, said that she was “relieved of the release” of her client, because “she is a very young woman of 20 who has suffered difficult things and is in dramatic mourning. “.
“I had appealed against the pre-trial detention because I felt that there was no medical certainty and that there were guarantees of sufficient representation,” she added, satisfied that the investigation “can be brought to completion in conditions of serenity”.
Supported in Corsica and died in Nice
Rescuers had been called in late January to take care of the baby in Calenzana, a village in Balagne, Haute-Corse, where he lived with his parents.
First transferred to the Calvi hospital in serious condition, he was then taken to Nice where he died.
In view of the wounds, bruises and intracranial wounds presented by the small victim, attesting to “the violence of the blows”, the prosecution had retained the count of “aggravated intentional homicide”, then indicated the prosecutor of Bastia.
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