Former Corsican separatist leader Orsoni shot dead at mother's funeral

PARIS, Jan 12 - Former Corsican separatist leader Alain Orsoni was shot dead during his mother's funeral on Monday in Vero, a village 30 km (18.6 miles) east of Ajaccio, the capital of the Mediterranean French island, the city's public prosecutor said.

"He was hit by a long-range shot," prosecutor Nicolas Septe, told Reuters. Local police confirmed the assassination.

Orsoni, 71, led a separatist movement called the Corsican Movement for Self-Determination, which French police considered to be the legal front for the armed group, the Corsican National Liberation Front-Traditional Wing.

Authorities linked the Corsican National Liberation Front-Traditional Wing to a series of attacks on the island in the 1990s, some of which the group claimed.

Orsoni was also charged, convicted and later pardoned in connection with a machine gun attack on the Iranian embassy in Paris in 1980.

Orsoni was also the president of Corsican soccer club AC Ajaccio in the late 2000s and early 2010s. REUTERS