The aunt of Fauret’s wife Sabine said from the pilot’s home near the central city of Lyon: “I am delighted that the pilots, who are innocent, can be questioned in France and not in a so-called republic where justice does not exist”.
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Dominguez said authorities also opened an investigation into how the two men escaped and to identify possible accomplices, both Dominican and French.
A French pilot facing 20 years imprisonment over a cocaine conviction in the Dominican Republic said Tuesday that he and a fellow pilot fled across the Atlantic rather than wait for a ruling on their appeal.
They were arrested in March 2013 along with Nicolas Pisapsia, a passenger on the plane they were piloting, and alleged broker Alain Castany. They had been released after a year in detention but under judicial supervision – an arrangement that gave them an opportunity to flee.
In a press conference Dominguez said he had already requested an worldwide arrest warrant for the pilots. They have denied wrongdoing.
The French government has stressed that it had nothing to do with their escape.
All four of the men involved have declared their innocence.
But yesterday they were back with their families in France after travelling by boat from the Dominican Republic to the Franco-Dutch island of Saint Martin, before flying to Martinique and then on to France.
“I want to come out clean from all this, that’s why I’m here to fight until the end”, Pisapia told AFP by telephone.
Their lawyer, Jean Reinhart, said on Europe-1 radio on Tuesday that the two were in France and at the “disposition” of French justice in the hope of clearing their names.
“They are not trying to evade justice”, he insisted. “The first thing they did upon their return was to write to the magistrate” in charge of their case in France.
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Of the 10 Dominicans charged with complicity in the case, six were acquitted and four others given sentences ranging from five to 10 years in prison.
