Former Ajaccio president shot dead at his mother’s funeral.

Alain Orsoni, president of Ajaccio between 2008 and 2015 and between 2022 and 2023, was shot dead on Monday while attending his mother’s funeral in Vero, a town on the French island of Corsica, about 30 kilometers from Ajaccio.

According to the French press, the former sports and political leader, 71, succumbed to injuries sustained from a bullet fired directly into his heart while he was standing next to his mother’s coffin.

Orsoni was a prominent member and leader of the Corsican National Liberation Movement (FLNC) in the 1980s, and in 1990 he formed the Movement for Self-Determination (MPA), which would eventually dissolve a few years later.

He was exiled for 13 years after being suspected of corruption and returned to Corsica shortly before taking over the leadership of Ajaccio, then in the French Second Division. That same year, in 2008, he escaped an assassination plot, and in 1983 he was the target of an attempt that ended with the death of his brother, whose perpetrators would eventually die in prison.

Suspected of constant links to shady dealings, his years as president of the Corsican club were also marked by much turbulence. In 2009 he was arrested on suspicion of links to organized crime on the island, but was released after a 36-day hunger strike.

According to Le Monde, which cites sources linked to the ongoing investigation, Alain Orsoni may have been killed by an organized gang.