Ian Bailey, convicted in France for the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, died in Ireland

The death on Sunday of Ian Bailey, 66, was reported by several Irish media, which cited his lawyer Frank Buttimer.

The information was reported by several Irish media. Ian Bailey, the man sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 1996 murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, died on Sunday January 21 in Ireland. This former British journalist based in Ireland was convicted in 2019, in his absence, by the Paris Assize Court for the murder of the 39-year-old French woman, whose body was discovered on the morning of December 23, 1996 by a neighbor , below his isolated home in Schull, near Cork, on the country’s southwest coast.

According to the Irish Times, Ian Bailey, 66, died at Bantry General Hospital, in the south of the country where he had just been transported.

Extradition requests refused

“We will never get the truth from him now,” regretted the uncle of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, Jean-Pierre Gazeau, quoted by the‘Irish Examiner. “We know he is a killer because the French judge judged him that way, but it is not the same judgment in Ireland. The Irish state has still not resolved the case”he added.

“I think a lot about Sophie’s family,” reacted Marie Dosé, the lawyer for the Toscan du Plantier family. “They had the hope of an extradition which I considered legally impossible”she continued, acknowledging having been “upset” by the trial of this media affair and strewn with gray areas.

If the French justice had considered that there existed “sufficient evidence” to convict Ian Bailey, despite the absence of scientific evidence linking him to the crime, Irish justice had, on several occasions, refused to extradite him to France. Ian Bailey had always proclaimed his innocence.