The floor for the defense this Friday, October 21, 2022, in the long and tortuous double parricide appeal trial
of La Bastide-Clairence in the Basque Country, which has been taking place since October 3 at the Mont-de-Marsan courthouse in the Landes department. The two lawyers of Sofiya Bodnarchuk have striven to plead the acquittal of their client, while a few hours earlier, Advocate General Marc Bourragué requested confirmation of the sanctions imposed in Pau at first instance. Namely 30 years of criminal imprisonment against Kevin Rouxel for “assassination” and 20 years of imprisonment for “complicity” against his former partner, the young Kazakh of 29 years old Sofiya Bodnarchuk.
“The impotence of innocence”.
“You have nothing”. It is the lack of concrete evidence in this criminal case, highlighted by Me Edouard Martial. The tenor of the bar of Agen warns the jurors against a possible miscarriage of justice. “There is no proof” insists the lawyer who describes his client as an accused who is “in the helplessness of innocence”. A way of saying that she is defenseless against the accusations of her detractors. Me Gregoire Mouly, the other defender of the young woman, insists: “there is no moral element, nor material element. Don’t make Sofiya Bodnarchuk Kevin Rouxel’s latest victim.”
Kevin Rouxel cracks in full audience.
As Grégoire Mouly, one of Sofya Bodnarchuk’s two defense lawyers, began to speak, Kévin Rouxel cracked up. Violently. He suddenly started screaming “Omar Raddad, Omar Raddad” in reference to the former gardener sentenced for the murder of Ghislaine Marchal, while he proclaimed his total innocence. Kevin Rouxel was evacuated by the security service. Sofya Bodnarchuk was also removed from the dock and the hearing was suspended. She resumed a few minutes later, but without the main accused.
Kevin Rouxel’s defense denounces the influence of Sofiya
For Kevin Rouxel’s lawyers, the issue is not the recognition of the facts, but the level of the legal sanction. Since his 30-year prison sentence at first instance two years ago, Kevin Rouxel has admitted his guilt. On the other hand, his hatred of Sofiya is intact. His lawyer Emmanuel Zapirain is convinced of the harmful influence of the wife in the morbid scenario. “If Sofiya had not arrived in her life, there would not have been this drama” believes the Bayonne lawyer.
Trial seven years after the fact
The dramatic facts date back to February 20, 2016, at midday, in the family home, at a place called Bigné. During his 23rd birthday meal, Kevin Rouxel killed his parents Pascal and Ewa Rouxel, in an attempt to get their hands on the inheritance, valued at one million euros. His ex-wife, Sofiya Bodnarchuk, a 29-year-old Kazakh boy whom he met via a dating site, denies tooth and nail the acts of complicity for which she was sentenced, in Pau at first instance, to 20 years in prison for complicity of assassination.