The Assize Court followed the requisitions of the prosecution. During the trial, the accused admitted to having killed and dismembered the Strasbourg student but fiercely denied any premeditation.
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He receives the maximum possible sentence. Jean-Marc Reiser was found guilty of the assassination of Sophie Le Tan and sentenced to life imprisonment, with a security period of 22 years, Tuesday, July 5. The Assize Court of Bas-Rhin followed the requisitions of the prosecution. The jurors deliberated for about two hours. When the verdict was announced, the family of Sophie Le Tan, all of whose members were present for the outcome of this trial, remained impassive. Jean-Marc Reiser, he remained stoic, hands behind his back, looking at the ground.
During the trial, the 61-year-old defendant admitted to having killed and dismembered the Strasbourg student during an apartment visit, but fiercely denied any premeditation. This question was at the heart of the debates throughout the trial. The scenario of a “meet fortuitous” and “cable breakout” was rejected by the prosecution and the civil parties. For them, the sexagenarian had published a fake rental ad in order to trap a young student corresponding to his taste for Asian women – Sophie being of Vietnamese origin.
Remains an unknown: how did Sophie die? Has she been sexually abused? The questions were raised during the debates, even if Jean-Marc Reiser was not prosecuted for rape. “What happened? Only he knows (…) We only have the ‘reiserienne’ version”, lamented Gérard Welzer, another lawyer for the civil parties. The sexagenarian was facing his fifth jury of assizes, after being convicted in particular of rape twenty years ago.