For three weeks, the former military master is judged for the kidnapping and murder of Maëlys de Araujo, during a wedding party. The Court withdrew to deliberate.
Le Monde with AFP
Before the jurors of the Assize Court de l’Isère withdrew to decide on his fate, Nordahl Lelandais once presented his “apologies”, Friday, February 18, to the family of Little Maëlys. For three weeks, the former military master is judged for the kidnapping and murder of Maëlys de Araujo, during a wedding party, as well as for sexual assaults against two small cousins of 4 and 6 years old, In the same summer 2017.
“I recognize all the facts that are reproached for me, with sincerity. I know that families will never accept my apologies, but I have to present them with the greatest sincerity,” said the accused. , against which the Crown required the perpetuity criminal imprisonment with twenty-two years of security. “I also heard the experts on the long work I have to do on myself, I am aware of it, I will do it with a great determination,” added Nordahl Lelandais, standing in his box against The Court.
After the last words of the one who, chance of the calendar, is 39 years Friday, the court withdrew to deliberate. The verdict is expected during the day.
“absolute social hazard”
Thursday, the public prosecutor had claimed the maximum sentence against him, a perpetuity conviction with a security sentence of twenty-two, while his defense has endeavored to convince the jurors to limit the sentence at thirty years of imprisonment for the murder of Maëlys.
The accused is an “absolute social hazard”, said the Advocate General, Jacques Dallest, in his indictment, calling those who deem it to declare it “great criminal, great predator”. “Even severe, the own justice is to stay human,” said the defense lawyer, M e Alain Jakubowicz. “Thirty years in prison, locked up, that’s what it deserves clearly, and he knows it.”
“We do not fix a sentence on the leading pain of the victims. In infinite pain, infinite punishment. No, a thousand times no!”, he launched. “The general reprobation of which Nordahl Lelandais is the object and persists, it may be so much his behavior after the crime that is criticized that the crime himself,” said M e Jakubowicz in his pleadings.
More than 250 journalists have been accredited for debates, considerable affluence for this type of business. Every day, a crowd jostles the doors of the Grenoble courthouse, often waiting long hours to try to attend the hearings of what some consider as the “trial of the century”.
Versions fluctuating
Very quickly targeted by the investigators after the girl’s disappearance, the one his friends call “Nono” was pushed to the confessions six months later after the discovery of a tiny blood stain in the trunk of his car. He then indicated the place where he had concealed the body, in a forest.
The survey led to a rapprochement with the unexplained disappearance of Corporal Arthur Noyer, in April 2017 in Chambéry, after a watered evening. It is for this murder that the former dog master was sentenced in May 2021 to twenty years of criminal imprisonment.
Since the beginning of the trial dedicated to Maelys, Mr. Lelandais has delivered fluctuating versions of the girl’s disappearance, varying in particular on the circumstances of the removal of his victim. He ended up recognizing having killed him “voluntarily” by striking him violently in his face, a few minutes after taking him away from the village hall where he had encountered it little before. He justified this sudden outbreak of violence by panic access, a “hallucination”, explaining to have seen the face of Arthur walnut on that of the girl.
“You destroyed a life in April 2017, you destroyed a life in August 2017, you sowed despair, eternal suffering among these families, you are a destroyer of happiness,” launched him the Advocate General , describing it as a man “without emotion”. The lawyers of the civil parties estimated the “fair” requisition and consistent with the expectations of their clients, given the “criminal danger” of Mr. Lelandais.