This is a disavowal for the specialized interregional jurisdiction (JIRS) of Marseille. The investigating chamber of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal (Bouches-du-Rhône) canceled, Monday, October 17, the indictment of the Parisian lawyer Pascal Garbarini in a money laundering case aimed at the band of Petit Bar in Corsica, including Me Garbarini is the historical lawyer. For more than twenty years, this team of thugs has imposed itself in the criminal landscape of southern Corsica, and more particularly in that of the region of Ajaccio, from which its members originate. In their reasoning, the appeal judges consider that there is no “serious and concordant indications” capable of justifying this indictment. They specify that “Pascal Garbarini will be considered as an assisted witness from his first appearance interrogation and for all of his subsequent interrogations, until the end of the information. »
The criminal lawyer, long specialized in cases of Corsican nationalists – he was notably one of the defenders of Yvan Colonna -, had been indicted for “criminal association” and placed under judicial control on June 14 by the investigating judges of the JIRS of Marseille, Anaïs Trubuilt and Thomas Hirth, within the framework of a judicial investigation opened in 2008 against the Petit Bar gang.
The judges suspected the lawyer of having exceeded his role as advisor to one of his clients, Jacques Santoni, suspected of being the leader of this band of thugs. The latter, severely disabled following a motorcycle accident in Ajaccio in 2003, is the subject of several convictions. On July 27, the same appeal court of Aix-en-Provence had already canceled the judicial review of the lawyer on the grounds that “the elements that founded the indictment of the head of the criminal association of Pascal Garbarini result from the interceptions of the conversations he may have had with Jacques Santoni in the latter’s Paris apartment, on November 13 and November 25, 2019 “.
“Legitimate Confidentiality”
In its decision rendered on Monday, the investigating chamber follows the recommendations of the general prosecutor’s office. In these requisitions taken on September 20, Advocate General Yvon Calvet noted that “the clues that should characterize participation in a criminal association seem however insufficiently characterized: the existence of the usual and long-standing defense of individuals who are members of a criminal team involved in organized crime, even if this defense of these different individuals would be concerted, cannot by itself constitute any association of criminals”.
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