The former military spoke to his old companion, with whom he was still in connection at the time of the disappearance of the little girl in 2017.
Le Monde with AFP
“There would not have been this drama”: judged for the murder of the young Maëlys in 2017, Nordahl Lelandais said Friday 4th February that the little girl would still be alive if her ex-companion had answered the message that he sent him the night of the facts.
“If I was spent seeing you, it would have changed everything, I would have gone to the wedding and the little one would still be there, says the accused of 38, standing in the box, addressing his old companion in tears at the bar.
– It did not depend on you? You have your free will, Mr. Lelandais, insists Chair Valérie Blain.
– If my girlfriend had answered the message, I would not have stayed at the wedding, I would go to sleep at home, “he replies.
– And it did not happen anything?
– Yes, “he answers.
An affirmation” indecent “
Reacting soon after this exchange, the lawyer of the Mother of Maës, M e Fabien Rajon, judged “indecent to make him feeling this unfortunate ex-companion by telling him that, if it had answered his SMS, the little Maëlys would not be dead “.
“It’s properly unbearable,” commented on the lawyer of Maëlys’s father, M e Laurent Boguet, judging that “Nordahl Lelandais is the man of the pretexts , false excuses, the man of the lie “.
The Court had previously listened to the recording of a telephone conversation between the two lovers dating back to October 2017, while Nordahl Lelandais was already in prison, suspected of murder. In this exchange, he had denied any connection with the disappearance of the girl and had implored the young woman not to “doubt” of him. “They go crazy with their stories, but you’re not going to doubt me. It’s aberrant, it’s crazy, it’s a sick thing, assured former military. I would have preferred to spend the evening with Moreover, there was nothing exceptional in this marriage. If I had known … “
He had also recognized in this conversation to have “spoke” in Maëlys, who had seen the picture of his dogs on his phone during the evening. “But there are others who talked to the girl,” he had swept.
A “possible sexual mobile”
The question of a possible tendency to pedophilia of the accused is at the heart of the trial. The former military must also respond to sexual assaults of two old-cousins at the time of 4 and 6 years, as well as detention and registration of child pornographic images.
These facts had been discovered during the investigation of Maëlys’s disappearance when the investigators had put their hands on video trip videos, filmed by telephone, who go back to July and August 2017. He is accused of caressed the Sex of her 4-year-old cousin at the time, while she slept alone in a room. Then have reproducing these same gestures, in the same circumstances, a few weeks later on another 6-year-old little cousin.
“These sexual assaults have been committed, although Nordahl Lelandais is presumed innocent, for one of them six weeks before the facts about Maëlys, the other, a week pile before the facts about Maëlys”, a Statement of the lawyer of the parents of the two small cousins, M e caroline releg. “It obviously poses the question of a possible sexual mobile for Maëlys de Araujo, given the proximity to the age of these girls and the proximity in terms of temporality,” she said.
Maëlys de Araujo, 8 years old, had disappeared during a wedding at the end of August 2017 in the Festival Room of Pont-de-Beavoisin (Isère). Quickly suspected, Nordahl Lelandais had denied for several months before confessing, in February 2018, to have “unintentionally” killed the girl with blows.