The crime of former Puma Aramburu: the crude account of a witness and the key information he provided

During the early hours of March 19 in Paris, former Argentinian rugby Federico Martín Aramburu was killed after having played a dispute in a bar in the central area of the French capital. For the crime there are already three detainees, one of them Loïk Le Priol, a 27-year-old man accused of being the perpetrator. Now, for the first time, a witness gave details of what happened that night.

The French news portal L'Equipe published an interview with a subject, whose identity was kept secret, who witnessed an event that occurred shortly before the shooting of the former Los Pumas player. It is worth remembering that Aramburu was in the bar Le Mabillon with his friend Shaun Hegarty, former teammate at Biarritz Olympique and currently his partner in the travel company Esprit Basque, when had an interview with two men: Loïk Le Priol and Romain Bouvier, both arrested by the police a few days later. That conflict caused the security of the premises to drive out the French and some time later, when the Argentine and his partner left the place, they were reunited on public roads.

At that time, the witness was sleeping in his room, meters from the place, and was awakened by the cries coming from the street: “My first instinct is to go and see. It was approximately 5:55 a.m., which was corroborated by footage from the security cameras. The climax of the fight is difficult to describe but I hear a man, whom I identify today as Le Priol, screaming. But really screaming, insulting and always in the direction of the same person, who at that time did not know who he was. Despite the time, there were many people peeking out the windows, which testifies to the violence of the scene.”

“This scene lasted only a few seconds. Aramburu falls to the ground for a very short time. The intervention of the boys from the bar downstairs is immediate,” he described, noting the very good work of the security men of Le Mabillon, who managed to end the brawl and disperse the violent. At this point, the witness made a key clarification by describing two completely different attitudes between the two Frenchmen and the former Argentine athlete: “I saw Aramburu on the ground and I remember thinking he was taking it damn well. He stood up. They just screwed him up and he's not even trying to hit back.”

For his part, Le Priol was enraged: “Try to go back there, he continues to shout insults but is prevented by someone I have not identified. I'm sure if I could have come back, I would have. I think if I could have killed him with his fists, he would have killed him with his fists. I was yelling 'Your mother! ' What seemed crazy to me was the contrast between attitudes.”

The witness was surprised because to this day there has been no emphasis on this confrontation on the doors of the bar. So far, witnesses who have spoken to the press have mentioned the question inside the building that was started by a cigarette and then the time of the shots fired from a Jeep driven by a woman. This contribution adds a new encounter between Aramburu and his murderers. “Nobody talks about this fight, it was short but very violent.” Even, from his place he managed to see that the former Puma “had a really swollen face”, so he had received a strong blow to the face. “It's very subjective but now that I know the profile of the protagonists, I think they went after Aramburu because Hegarty scared them too much. It's a closet!”

In this regard, he insisted that the attitude of the Argentine and his partner was never violent: “Aramburu was attacked but he never hit back. He was firm. He and Shaun must have said to themselves: 'We met two morons, they are twenty years old, they are drunk, it must have happened to them 20 times in their lives, 'Come on, come on, come on. back to the hotel! ' “, and remarked: “Aramburu didn't want to fight. Of course not...”

By that time, Le Priol and Bouvier had already been separated from the scene and pushed into the street, but Le Priol had one more gesture that caught the eye of the witness: “There, I remember seeing a guy (Le Priol) trying to get something out of his pocket several times. I wanted to scream, I didn't. I said to myself 'I'm going to be taken for a psychopath'. I said to myself 'In the worst case it's a knife'. Fights, I've seen a few, but this one was rare, it was the first time I had the feeling that I could go further.” It is worth remembering that some of the customers of the bar testified to the media hours after the crime that Le Priol had something in his pocket that some identified as a police badge.

Soon after, the volume of the voices dropped and the brawl seemed to be over. That's when he spotted a woman, the other detained by the authorities, and the Jeep that the three of them would use later, but he didn't pay much attention to that detail. The witness returned to his bed to continue sleeping, as he watched everyone leave the scene and thought that the violence was over.

“I look at my phone. I close my eyes, I don't even have time to do this (he imitates the gesture of wrapping himself in his sheet) that six shots sound. I hear six, very close. I analyze in three seconds in my head: they are gunshots, they are fireworks, no, it's probably what I had in my pocket!” After uncovering himself, he leaned out the window and saw only a few people running to the place where the shots had been fired, and then called the police to report what he had seen.

When he went to the scene, the medical teams were already working on Aramburu's body: “It's like a movie scene, but it's not a movie. I'm dumbfounded, I don't feel much, I don't cry.” Later, around noon, he gave his testimony to the authorities and had the opportunity to cross paths with Shaun Hegarty, the Argentinian rugby partner: “He was silent, which is completely normal. He had a liter of water, his battery at 1%, and his phone rang every three seconds. The name 'Maria' often stood out. I quickly understand that she is Aramburu's wife. We smoked a cigarette together, we didn't exchange a word.”

There were three arrests linked to the cause, a young woman named Lison, 24, who was driving the Jeep from where the shots were fired; Romain Bouvier, a a 30-year-old man who is part of a French far-right student union; and Loïk Le Priol, accused of being the main perpetrator of the crime.

Le Priol, 27, was arrested 72 hours after the assassination in the border town of Zahony, in a sector where the boundaries of Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine cross. “The foreigner told the police that he had military training and would have gone to Ukraine to fight,” the Hungarian Police, who seized three knives in his vehicle, assured the French media RMC Sports. The former military man and member of a far-right movement called GUD is known for his radicality and violence, belongs to far-right movements and was due to appear in court in June for “aggravated violence” against a member of the GUD.

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