Lhe organization of events inspired by the game show “Koh Lanta” within the prison of Fresnes and for the benefit of charities was a “controversial act”, admitted Monday on CNews the organizer, while ensuring that “the goal was not to shock”. Baptized “Kohlanness”, this event, organized on July 27, bringing together detainees, guards and young people from Fresnes (Val-de-Marne), provoked the indignation of several right and far right personalities after the broadcast of a video Friday on social networks, in particular on YouTube, showing a go-kart race in the prison yard.
“Everything was in order. We did not expect that” from the Ministry of Justice (which called for an investigation), explained Enzo Angelo Santo, producer of “Kohlanness”, who assures that the ministry had validated this demonstration. “We should not reduce our approach to karting”, he insisted, specifying that “all the prisoners” who participated in the program were “people able to reintegrate” and “in school”. .
At least one “heavy criminal profile”
But, according to our colleagues from L’Opinion, at least one inmate who took part in the event can be considered a “heavy criminal profile”. He is a 31-year-old man sentenced to ten years in prison for rape in February 2021 by the Val-de-Marne Assize Court. L’Opinion, who consulted the criminal record of the detainee concerned, explains that cases of theft, violence with a weapon and drug trafficking are also mentioned. There is also talk of an escape in 2018 during an electronic bracelet conviction and incidents within the prison. The detainee allegedly took part in a tug-of-war test as part of the “Kohlanness”, according to the FO section of Fresnes prison, which the chancellery confirmed without giving further explanations, preferring to recall that an investigation is open.
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Asked about BFMTV, the general controller of places of deprivation of liberty, Dominique Simonnot, denounced “a somewhat strange and pathetic controversy”. “There are other things that happen in prison: mountain biking, horse riding, climbing, football between inmates and guards, but these images are not public,” she recalled. “The scandal is not there, but in the prison overcrowding, and in particular in Fresnes, which is one of the most dilapidated establishments, stuffed with cockroaches, bedbugs, rats, and where life is dismal. For the prisoners as well as for the guards”, she underlined.