Four people, including two men linked with France's extreme right, stood trial in Paris on Monday over the killing of former Argentina rugby player Federico Martín Aramburú. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
The trial took place more than four years after Aramburú was shot dead in March 2022, and a verdict is set for Sept. 25.
Loïk Le Priol, 32, is being prosecuted for murder, while Romain Bouvier, 35, faced charges of attempted murder. They face the possibility of life imprisonment.
Bouvier and then Le Priol gave their names to the court at shortly after 2:40 p.m. local time at the Palais de Justice in Paris.
The 42-year-old Aramburú, who played 22 times for Argentina, was killed when leaving a bar in Paris along with his friend Shaun Hegarty, a former New Zealand rugby player. The pair, who were former club teammates at Biarritz, had traveled to the capital to attend a Six Nations Championship match.
Le Priol's former girlfriend, 29-year-old Lyson Rochemir, who drove Bouvier to the scene of the shooting, faced a possible life sentence for complicity in attempted murder. She was also present on Monday.
A fourth defendant faced up to three years in prison for concealing evidence in order to protect one of the shooters.
Bouvier and Le Priol had been banned from seeing each other following their convictions for aggravated assault against a former president of a far-right student association in 2015. As members of the same organization, they said they had wanted to humiliate him because he "boasted about having assaulted women."
How the shooting happened: On March 19, 2022, shortly after 5 a.m., the two former rugby players arrived at a bar in Paris's Latin Quarter, Le Mabillon. They sat at a table next to the one occupied.