PARIS — Verdicts were expected Friday in the trial of four people, including two men linked with France’s extreme right, over the killing of former Argentina rugby player Federico Martín Aramburú.
The 42-year-old Aramburú, who played 22 times for Argentina, was killed in March 2022 when leaving a bar in Paris along with his friend Shaun Hegarty, an ex-New Zealand rugby player. They were former club teammates at Biarritz and traveled to the capital to attend a Six Nations Championship match.
On Wednesday, Advocate General Philippe Courroye requested a 27-year prison sentence for Loïk Le Priol — who fired the fatal shots — and 20 years for Romain Bouvier, who shot the rugby player twice without killing him.
Le Priol, 32, was charged with murder, while Bouvier, 35, faced charges of attempted murder.
According to an investigation into the death, the two rugby players had earlier sat at a table in a bar in Paris’ Latin Quarter next to another table occupied by far-right activists including Le Priol and Bouvier. The groups got into an argument that erupted into a fight and Le Priol and Bouvier then went hunting for the rugby players in a Jeep driven by Le Priol’s former girlfriend.
The two main defendants admitted involvement in the deadly shooting but denied it was premeditated, claiming they acted out of fear, with Bouvier saying he intended to only shoot at the ground. Neither of the rugby players was armed.
In his closing statements to the court, Bouvier said he “would never find words adequate to the suffering and dignity of Mr. Aramburú’s family.”
Le Priol told the court: “I am a Christian. ... The Pope is here today. It is a sign.”
Pope Leo opened a four-day trip to France on Friday.
“I hope that one day the family will find the strength to forgive me, and that I will forgive myself,” Le Priol added.
Courroye told the court that Bouvier and Le Priol “meted out their own brand of private justice — one in which the death penalty had not been abolished.”
The prosecution requested a three-year prison sentence with one year suspended for Lyson Rochemir, Le Priol’s girlfriend at the time of the shooting, for the concealment and destruction of evidence. Prosecutors requested a three-year sentence, with two years suspended, for the fourth defendant on the same charges.
Aramburú, married and the father of three, settled in the French Basque Country at the end of his career in 2012, having played for Biarritz, Perpignan, Dax and Scotland’s Glasgow.
He helped Argentina finish third at the 2007 Rugby World Cup, scoring a try against France as Argentina won the third-place match. The Argentine Rugby Union has also called for justice.
Shooting and aftermath
Surveillance footage showed Aramburú and Hegarty walking down the street toward their hotel following the brawl, Hegarty stopped to get some ice cubes to relieve the injuries sustained during the fight.
Bouvier was the first to spot them while he was in the Jeep with Rochemir. He fired four shots at Aramburú, two of which struck and wounded him. Le Priol then arrived running and, after a brief fight, fired six shots into his back. Four hit him, two of them fatally. The Argentine collapsed into the arms of Hegarty.
Rochemir was arrested on the same day, March 19. Le Priol was arrested three days later while attempting to cross the border between Hungary and Ukraine. Bouvier was arrested on Oct. 23, 2022, in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, in Western France.
A former soldier, Le Priol served in Mali, Niger and Djibouti, where he allegedly strangled and assaulted a prostitute.
He was repatriated to France in 2015 because of a post-traumatic disorder, and his military contract was terminated in 2017 after he was charged with aggravated assault in connection with an October 2015 incident involving the former president of a far-right student association.
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Nicolas Vaux-montagny, The Associated Press
