Paris - In Corsica they say blood calls more blood, reports Lara Marlowe. Two men were murdered on the Mediterranean island yesterday, only four days after the extremist nationalist Francois Santoni was shot and killed as he left a wedding.
Witnesses near the site of the killing at Moriani, north-eastern Corsica, heard 15 gunshots at noon. The murderers set fire to their victims' hired Volkswagen Passat and one of the men died in the car. The other is believed to have survived the shooting long enough to throw himself from the burning car. He was later identified as Dominique Marcelli (25), known as a petty criminal and member of Armata Corsa, the violent breakaway group founded by Santoni in June 1999. His assassination so soon after Santoni's murder was probably an attempt to discourage thoughts of retaliation.
Very few murders are solved on the island of 250,000, where 17 people have met violent deaths this year. The alleged assassin of the Prefect Claude Erignac, shot dead in Ajaccio in 1998, is still at large. No one has been charged with the murder a year ago of Jean-Michel Rossi, Francois' Santoni's close friend. Authorities say they have no leads in Santoni's case either.