Verdicts expected in trial over killing of Argentina rugby player Aramburú in Paris

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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. 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 ex-girlfriend, 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.