Heard Tuesday, June 14 by the judges of the specialized interregional jurisdiction (JIRS) of Marseille, the Parisian criminal lawyer Pascal Garbarini was indicted for “association of criminals”, according to information from the World, confirmed by the Marseille prosecutor’s office. Historical lawyer of the so-called Petit Bar gang – a team of Ajaccien thugs who since the beginning of the 2000s have established themselves in the criminal milieu of Ajaccio and its region –, M^e Garbarini had been taken into custody on May 12 at the research section of the Corsican gendarmerie. He came out free after ten hours of interrogation with a summons to appear before the judges.

This file also concerns a money laundering case in which Me Garbarini is placed under the status of assisted witness. In another criminal case, several members of this gang, including its presumed leader Jacques Santoni, are referred to the assizes for the assassination of lawyer Antoine Sollacaro in October 2012 in Ajaccio.

58 years old, Mr.^e Garbarini is known to have been during the 1990s, one of the most prominent island nationalist lawyers, after having himself taken part in the fight for independence. Registered at the Paris bar for thirty-two years, he notably defended Yvan Colonna, sentenced in 2011 to life imprisonment for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac, and died in March following an attack committed by a fellow prisoner at the central from Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône).

Only one answer out of 800 questions

The lawyer was placed under judicial supervision with a ban on meeting several people suspected of belonging to the Petit Bar gang, also implicated in this same case. Among them is his client Jacques Santoni, 44, who had been remanded in custody in January 2021, then released in September 2021 due to his state of health deemed incompatible with detention.

This thug, heavily paralyzed following a motorcycle accident in 2003, was heard by the judges of the Marseille JIRS on March 22. Subjected to questions from the magistrates, he opposed his right to silence, consenting to only one answer to the 800 questions which were then put to him: that on his relationship with his lawyer. “M^e Garbarini does his job and is in no way in the slightest confidence of anything illegal, he had hammered, before concluding: Do I have a head to embarrass my lawyer? »

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