The sentences and what the jury rejected
After more than eleven hours of deliberation, the Paris criminal court handed Loïk Le Priol a 26-year prison term on Friday for the killing of former Argentina rugby international Federico Martín Aramburu, and sentenced Romain Bouvier to 19 years for attempted murder, according to the French outlet L'Equipe. Jurors set aside premeditation, self-defence and mental disorder. Prosecutors had asked for 27 years for Le Priol and 20 for Bouvier, and the court imposed one year less than requested because premeditation was not established.[S1]
The court also ruled on two other defendants. Lyson Rochemir, Le Priol's former partner, was acquitted of complicity in attempted murder but found guilty of obstructing justice and given three years, with 30 months suspended. Antony Sorrentino, a friend of Bouvier who helped him while he was on the run, received three years, all of it suspended. The judges found differing degrees of responsibility among those accused over the attack that ended Aramburu's life.[S1][S2]
Le Priol, 32, had served in the French navy before being removed from the armed forces. He and Bouvier had both been linked to the Groupe Union Défense, a far-right student organisation dissolved in 2024, and both had already been convicted in 2022 over a 2015 assault on a former leader of that group, Le Monde reported. They spent more than four years in pre-trial detention before the trial opened on 7 September and ran for three weeks.[S1]
How the shooting unfolded
Aramburu had travelled to the French capital with his friend and former Biarritz teammate, the New Zealander Shaun Hegarty, to watch France play England in the Six Nations rugby tournament. In the early hours the two men sat on the terrace of the bar Le Mabillon to celebrate a business deal, where Le Priol, Bouvier and others were also present. The investigation found there was drinking and insults between the two groups before a fight broke out. Security staff intervened and the two rugby players left.[S1][S5]
The prosecution argued that the accused then went looking for them in a Jeep driven by Rochemir, Le Priol's partner at the time. According to the reconstruction presented at trial, Bouvier fired four times and two bullets hit Aramburu. Le Priol arrived shortly afterwards and fired six shots; four struck the Argentine, two of them fatally. Aramburu was unarmed, the investigation found. He was 42 when he died after being shot on boulevard Saint-Germain in the early hours of 19 March 2022, following the fight in a Latin Quarter bar.[S1][S2][S5]
In his statements, Le Priol admitted causing the death of the former Argentina international but said he had acted in self-defence. Bouvier acknowledged firing but denied any intent to kill. The defence rejected the idea of prior planning and argued that both men reacted out of fear after the fight. The prosecutor, Philippe Courroye, dismissed that account, saying Aramburu and Hegarty had left the bar after the confrontation and that the accused followed them by car before shooting.[S1][S3]
The prosecutor's case and the victim's legacy
Courroye also challenged the defence's suggestion of a natural aggressiveness on Aramburu's part, saying testimony during the trial indicated the clash began with the accused men's offensive conduct. In his closing argument he described Le Priol and Bouvier as grenades without a safety pin and said they were fascinated by violence, weapons and Nazi symbolism, elements he argued had been established during the proceedings. He called the sequence that ended in the killing a murderous mechanism that led to the irreparable, and described Aramburu as a good man and a family father who was completely unarmed.[S3]
Security camera footage was decisive in identifying those responsible. The trial also examined the accused men's violent record and their involvement in a far-right organisation in their youth; the prosecutor maintained that ideology had not been abandoned. Born in Buenos Aires, Aramburu won 22 caps for Argentina and was part of the squad that finished third at the 2007 World Cup in France. He also built a notable career in French rugby with spells at Biarritz, Perpignan and other clubs, and after retiring lived in the French Basque Country with his wife, María Codino, and their three children.[S1][S3][S4]
His death prompted tributes in Argentina and France, particularly within rugby. Argentina's national team honoured his memory before a match against Australia in Mendoza, warming up in black shirts bearing the words Justice for Fede, an initiative backed by the Argentine Rugby Union; clubs playing that weekend's URBA Top 14 round joined the same campaign days before the trial began. The verdict was followed closely both in France, where the victim lived, and in Argentina.[S4][S5]
