By Thierry Leveque
PARIS (Reuters) - A French appeals court Friday upheld and lengthened the life sentence imposed on a Corsican shepherd for murdering a senior government official, a sensitive verdict on an island with a history of separatist violence.
Yvan Colonna was first sentenced in 2007 for the 1998 murder of Claude Erignac, who as prefect of Corsica embodied the power of the French state on the Mediterranean island. Colonna said he was innocent and appealed.
Prosecutors also appealed, seeking a tougher sentence of life in jail with a minimum prison time of 22 years -- which the court granted Friday.
The original life sentence, without that specified minimum, could have allowed Colonna out after 18 years.
Six other men were sentenced in separate trials to jail terms ranging from 15 years to life for being part of a commando that organised the killing of Erignac, who was shot in the head on his way to the theatre in the Corsican capital Ajaccio.
Erignac was the most senior person killed in three decades of separatist violence in Corsica. A more common tactic is to bomb empty holiday homes owned by people from mainland France.
Colonna's appeal trial, which began on February 9, turned into a political minefield for the French justice system.
His defence lawyers argued that it was a show trial in which the shepherd could not get a fair hearing because he was up against the full might of a state bent on revenge.
The argument resonated with the Corsican public. Separatist groups that were previously in the doldrums gained new momentum by rallying around Colonna, according to the Corsican press.
LAWYERS ATTACK SARKOZY
Colonna's lawyers pointed to Nicolas Sarkozy, who as Interior Minister declared at the time of Colonna's arrest in 2003 that he was "the killer of Prefect Erignac."
The lawyers said this breached the presumption of innocence, and that now Sarkozy was the French president, the judges could hardly be expected to return an innocent verdict.
After a month of chaotic hearings which were repeatedly suspended because of vitriolic attacks on the court, branded "worthy of Myanmar," Colonna and his lawyers walked out on March 11 and have refused to return to the courtroom.
The court, made up of nine professional judges, has repeatedly denied that it was influenced by Sarkozy and insisted that the French justice system is independent of politics.
Prosecutors have denounced Colonna's stance, saying it was a tactic to avoid confronting evidence of his guilt.
"Yvan Colonna is the shooter, the executioner ... He and the members of the commando lost their humanity," chief prosecutor Jean-Claude Kross said Thursday during his final remarks, delivered to an empty courtroom with no accused and no lawyers.
The case against Colonna rests on statements made by members of the commando who were arrested in 1999 and later convicted. Colonna went into hiding in the Corsican woods for four years.
The commando members later retracted their accusations against Colonna, but prosecutors said this was not credible.
Like the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, Corsican separatist groups have a strong tradition of "omerta" or vow of silence, and witnesses involved in Corsican court cases often drop out or change their statements after undergoing intimidation.
(Writing by Estelle Shirbon, editing by Tim Pearce)
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