Suspect of Aramburu murder in Paris arrested in Hungary

Paris, 23 Mar The main suspect in the murder of former Argentine rugby international Federico Martín Aramburu, in the early hours of last Saturday in Paris, was arrested tonight in Hungary, the Paris Prosecutor's Office announced Wednesday. This is Loïk Le Priol, a far-right militant with whom Aramburu had a dispute in a well-known bar in the central 6th district of the French capital, after which a shooting took place that ended the 42-year-old former rugby player's life. Le Priol's arrest comes two days after the French police arrested his girlfriend in Paris, who was driving the car in which he ran away with another accomplice, who also shot Aramburu and who remains unaccounted for. As confirmed to Efe by the Prosecutor's Office, the arrest took place during the night as a result of a European arrest warrant issued by the French justice system. Le Priol, a 27-year-old former military man signed by the police for violent acts and linked to French far-right groups, had been identified by several witnesses, both in the bar where the fight took place and during the shooting, in addition to video surveillance footage of the area where the crime took place. The police are still looking for Romain B., another activist from the far right, who also shot the former rugby player without hitting him. According to the reconstruction of the events carried out by the police, the murder took place around 6 in the morning on Boulevard Saint-Michel, near the bar where the fight took place. After the meeting, which was put to an end by the local staff, Aramburu retired in the company of his friend and partner, the former New Zealand player Shawn Hegarty, and in the middle of the street they were approached by the group. The car in which Le Priol's girlfriend and Romain B. were driving stopped before them and the individual fired at Aramburu, before the suspect appeared and killed him. In total, seven casings of calibers 22 and 7.65 were found at the site. The former player was shot four times, two of which were fatal, according to the first elements of the autopsy. Aramburu, a two-time champion of France with Biarritz, a club of which he became a member of the board of directors and the city where he lived and where he had a tourist business, could not be revived by Hegarty or by the emergency services that arrived. The assailants got into the car driven by the 24-year-old woman and fled. According to the testimony of Le Priol's girlfriend, revealed by local media, she acted “out of love” and with the firm intention of preventing them from acting. He said that after the fight at the bar he went to get the vehicle and went to look for his two friends. That he found Romain B., who got into the car but asked him to stop before the former rugby players when he saw them on the street and started shooting at them, at which point Le Priol appeared. The two got into the car and ran away. Le Priol, owner of the vehicle, asked him to drop them off at another point in the city and told him that he would not see him anymore, that he was going to elope. He also demanded that he break his mobile phone card to avoid being located. The young woman, a nutrition student who had been dating Le Priol for five years, was arrested in Paris last Monday and, after being interrogated, placed in pretrial detention on Tuesday in a women's prison in Versailles, outside Paris. His lawyer, Florian Lastelle, said that his client only wanted to avoid prolonging the fight, but the Prosecution considers that he participated in the “hunt” of the victim and that he did not go to the police after the incident. CHIEF lmpg/rcf/og