Jonathan Bettez, who police say remains a suspect in the high-profile disappearance and death of 9-year-old Cédrika Provencher 16 years ago, is eager to clear his name, his lawyer said Monday.
Mr. Bettez was at the Montreal courthouse for a hearing regarding the $10 million lawsuit he filed in 2019 against the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) for the way it targeted him in that case.
Investigators testified Monday that Mr. Bettez is still considered a suspect in the disappearance, in 2007 in Trois-Rivières, of Cédrika Provencher, whose bones were discovered in December 2015. No one has been charged with her murder.
Mr. Bettez’s lawyer, Jessy Héroux, told reporters at the courthouse that his client had nothing to do with what happened to the girl. Jonathan Bettez, he declared, is innocent and disappointed to still be linked to the disappearance of Cédrika Provencher.
Mr. Héroux said Jonathan will testify at the trial and is looking forward to it.
Risks of affecting the investigation
Jessy Héroux said the case had been delayed for nine months because the SQ refused to provide investigation documents, citing privilege. The case has also been delayed because police are fighting to keep some proceedings out of public view.
“There is a certain irony in the fact that now we have decided to limit publicity of the case and public access when we know that the police have made the case public and we also know that they associated Jonathan’s name with the disappearance of Cédrika Provencher and that the police disclosed information to the media,” declared Me Héroux.
“For us, it’s a little late to be discreet. »
The documents that the police refuse to disclose establish that there is no link between Jonathan Bettez and the crime and that the police ignored the exculpatory information, says Mr. Héroux.
Lawyers for the Quebec government told the court that the homicide investigation into the disappearance and murder of Cédrika Provencher could be affected if certain information was made public. Government lawyers say they want to object to the release of police documents before a judge alone, without Mr. Bettez’s lawyers present; they also want part of the trial to proceed with restrictions on what the public can see.
Ruth Arless-Frandsen, a lawyer for the Quebec government, said the attorney general’s office is aware that the requested restrictions are the exception rather than the rule. The office will do “everything in its power to make the debate public as much as possible,” Arless-Frandsen told the court, but added that there must be a balance between the public interest and preserving secrets police techniques.
Always suspicious
A Sûreté du Québec investigator said that Mr. Bettez remains a suspect in the girl’s disappearance because the police failed to exonerate him. Karine Sirois, who has been on the file since last August, affirms that there are elements in the Provencher file which have not been made public. Revealing these specific details during the trial, she explained, could compromise the case and benefit potential suspects, including Mr. Bettez.
Chantal Daudelin, a former lead SQ detective in the case, testified that her colleagues had tried to exonerate Mr. Bettez, but had not succeeded. In 2007, authorities searching for a red Acura in connection with the girl’s disappearance found six models matching a description given by eyewitnesses, she said, adding that all the owners had an alibi, according to ‘except for Mr. Bettez.
“These are suspicions, because we could not exclude him as a suspect,” Ms. Daudelin told Judge Gregory Moore of the Superior Court of Quebec. The window of opportunity was not closed in his case. »
Jonathan Bettez refused to take a polygraph test, but his lawyer said Monday that was because his client didn’t trust police and the results were greatly affected by stress.
Mr. Héroux told journalists that his client had been followed by the police, that his devices had been thoroughly searched and questioned for 14 hours. He was also subjected to a complex undercover operation, and police pressured his friends and family but could not find hard evidence to charge him with the murder, the lawyer said.
Mr. Bettez was arrested in 2016 on child pornography charges, but was ultimately acquitted after a judge ruled that the police had gone fishing and the judge quashed the warrants used to seize material. The family later sued the police, claiming the arrest had ruined the family business and its reputation.
Neither Jonathan Bettez nor his parents – Huguette Drouin and André Bettez – spoke to reporters on Monday, but Héroux said they wanted the lawsuit to be heard in public so that the police could be held accountable.
“What the family wants most is for the police to be held accountable for how they conducted the investigation into the murder and disappearance of Cédrika Provencher,” Héroux said. I think that Quebecers deserve answers and, beyond that, Cédrika’s parents and her sister deserve an explanation from the Sûreté du Québec. »