A jailed Corsican nationalist, whose prison assault sparked protests on the French Mediterranean island, has died, reports BBC News.
Yvan Colonna, 61, who had been serving a life sentence for murdering a local official, was beaten by another inmate, a Cameroonian jihadist, on March 2nd.
The attack left Colonna in a coma and he had been receiving treatment in a hospital in the south of France.
The assault provoked riots in Corsica, where many see him as a hero in its campaign for independence from France.
Colonna was jailed two decades ago for shooting dead Corsica's top official in 1998, following a five-year manhunt that eventually found him in the mountains living as a shepherd.
According to prosecutors, he was working out in the prison gym when Franck Elong Abé, 35, a former jihadist serving time for terror offences, launched his attack.
Abé tried to suffocate Colonna with a bin bag after hearing him "blaspheming" and mocking the prophet Muhammed, investigators say.
Colonna's assault - and the perceived failure of prison authorities to prevent it - stoked anger on the island, prompting its biggest and most violent protests in decades.