new elements in the investigation

For more than 30 years, Omar Raddad has maintained his innocence. Thursday, September 15, on leaving the Court of Cassation, lawyer Sylvie Noachovitch hoped to be on the right track to clear the honor of her client. “We have every hope that a decision will be favourable, insofar as I have explained at great length the new elements that I bring”, she says. New elements could perhaps topple one of the most famous criminal cases in France.

On June 24, 1991, in a villa in Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes), the rich heiress Ghislaine Marchal is found savagely stabbed. She was the employer of Moroccan gardener Omar Raddad. On the door of the boiler room, where his body is, an inscription in letters of blood: “Omar killed me”. According to the police, it was written by the victim himself. This element convinced the jurors, despite the absence of other evidence of Omar Raddad’s guilt. In 1994 he was sentenced to 18 years in prison. He made only seven, because in 1996, Jacques Chirac granted him a partial presidential pardon. Released in 1998, he was not however cleared. The review court will rule on October 13 on a possible new trial.