Press Interpreter

03/01/06 -- Obituary --Joelle Aubron, member of Direct Action ("AD"), died on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 1, at the age of 46 said Alain Pojolat, member of the support committee for imprisoned members of AD. She had lung cancer and had been in coma for many days.

She was released from prison on June 16, 2004, for medical reasons after 17 years in jail. Arrested on February 17, 1987, the was convicted in 1989 and 1994 and sentenced to life in prison, with a guarantee of serving 18 years, for the 1986 assasinations of the president of Renault, Georges Besse, and the 1985 assasination of General Rene Audran.

After her release, she lived with her parents in Yonne, checking in each month to show that the was receiving medical attention, and keeping her thoughts close to her "fellows in AD who are constantly undergoing extraordinary suffering." She called for the same suspension of sentence for Nathalie Menigon, incarcerated at Bapaume (Pas-de-Calais) and paralyzed on one side as a result of strokes.

A Militant to the End

To the end, Joelle Aubrun was a militant. "It was never hate that motivated me. Anger, yes. But not hate. These actions had political meaning for me," she said in March 2005 on the subject of the assassination of the CEO of Renault, Georges Besse, and the engineer-general Rene Audran. She also said "our position lost. Nevertheless, I will not disown my views." She recognized however that she had never thought that "she was right" in "choosing armed struggle."

Lucid on the subject of her legal situation, Joelle Aubron was aware that from the perspective of the criminal law, the terms of her release were clear: "if I recover, I go back to prison. I am on probation," she explained. On March 16, 2004, Joelle Aubron was operated on for a brain tumor. Her main cancer, of the lungs, was detected one year after her release.

Nathalie Menigon, 47, Jean-Marc Rouillan, 51, and Georges Cipriani, 53, are still doing time. Nearly 2,000 people, including politicians of the left and the Greens, recently signed a petition calling for the release of these three prisoners, who are going to begin their 20th year in jail.

[Full Article]

With AFP.

* Direct Action (Action Directe) was a French left-wing urban guerilla group active in the 1980s. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Directe_(gang) .

--Translated by Ramsi Woodcock

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