Bad misadventure for Jean Alesi, the former Formula 1 driver who also raced with Scuderia Ferrari, arrested in France at Villeneuve-le’s-Avignon on charges of damage with explosives. In fact, according to the former driver’s claim, he would have thrown a firecracker at the window of his brother-in-law’s office last Sunday, as he was separating from his sister.
“Jean Alesi was arrested on Monday for damaging someone else’s property by means of an explosive device,” said today the deputy prosecutor of Nimes, Antoine Wolff. The facts occurred, as mentioned, in Villeneuve-le’s-Avignon, the Gard town where the 57-year-old former Ferrari driver resides.
The police had been called on Sunday around 10 pm by residents in the neighborhood, worried by the sound of an explosion. Thanks to the license plate number noted by a neighbor, the police were able to ascertain that the vehicle seen at the scene, before leaving with the lights off, belonged to José Alesi, brother of the former driver, who was immediately arrested. Yesterday, the former Scuderia Ferrari driver (1991-1995) went to the police station, where he cleared his brother’s name, explaining that he was in the car, with his son and a friend of the latter, and that he himself had put a “large firework bought in Italy” in the window frame of his brother-in-law’s architect’s office, without imagining to cause such damage, explained the deputy prosecutor.
Jean Alesi explained that he only wanted to play a “bad joke” on his brother-in-law, who is separating from his sister, while assuring that he was not in dispute with him. However, the police did not take it well and arrested him: “I’m quite skeptical about the notion of a prank being played at 10 o’clock at night, without the targeted person knowing who it was, and everyone is being listened to see if there is another motive,” added Antoine Wolff.
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