And if a simple road check had allowed to trace back the arsonists of the Mercedes garage in Ajaccio and two establishments in Corte, the Bama and the 24, on the night of December 4, 2022? This is not what the defense will say when pleading, but it is certainly what the prosecution will argue in their speeches during the trial of Kevin Ornec and Mourad Amar, judged by the criminal court of Ajaccio since this Tuesday, April 7, for these criminal fires, which they strongly deny.
However, it was this check on December 17, 2022, in Ajaccio, that guided the rest of the investigations: on that day, the gendarmes from the motorized brigade noticed burn marks on the front of the man they were checking, Kevin Ornec. The link was then made with the damages committed a few days earlier, since one of the arsonists was injured during these fires.
“I have nothing against Mr. Miniconi,” says Kevin Ornec, as he states during his account of the events, the president of the criminal court of Ajaccio, Sophie Boyer.
The politics seems to be on everyone’s mind, but cannot be asserted with certainty, as the masterminds have not been identified, as rightly pointed out by Jean-André Miniconi, owner of the Mercedes dealership. But what caught the attention of justice were the profiles of the victims. The first, Jean-André Miniconi, presented himself as the head of the list in the 2020 municipal elections in Ajaccio, with the support of the president of the executive branch of Corsica, Gilles Simeoni. This same Gilles Simeoni is the father of the co-manager of the Bama establishment in Corte, another target of the arsonists on the night of December 4, 2022.
Returning to the interrogations. Especially regarding the famous burn. “It may sound funny when I say it, but I made flambé bananas and burnt myself in the middle of the forehead and eyebrows,” insists Kevin Ornec, who has always maintained this version. “Grand Marnier is more dangerous than we think,” the president teases.
And since the investigators described the stature of the two arsonists seen on the surveillance videos, there was a lot of talk about corpulence, “overweight” and “swollen face”. “Like 50% of people in Corsica,” estimates Kevin Ornec.
Mourad Amar had to explain about a conversation in which he referred to “Simeoni” the day after the fire at his own business in Propriano, in February 2023. “It means that if it happened to important people like him, it could happen to me too,” argues this thirty-year-old.
The prosecutor, Nicolas Mingant, then takes the path of telephony. He recalls that one of the two vehicles used in this case was destroyed the day after the events, on the road to Pila-Canale. “You drove past the area a few minutes later,” points out Nicolas Mingant.
At the end of the day, Jean-André Miniconi stepped forward to share, above all, his feelings as a business owner. “We manage businesses that employ between 120 and 150 people, we do politics for the good of our city and in the end, we have troubles. Maybe there are debates that we do not want to have in Corsica. Because I am not the only one, just this weekend, another company fell victim to arson. It makes you lose interest in everything, just to retire,” he confides, knowing that he will never know the masterminds behind these arson attacks.
The prosecution and pleadings are scheduled for Wednesday, April 8.
