“I am personally satisfied with the verdict, even if we will not have the answers to all the questions”, said this Saturday on franceinfo Jacques Dalles, public prosecutor of the Grenoble Court of Appeal, general counsel during the trial of Nordahl Lelandais for the murder of little Maëlys De Araujo aged 8 and a half, in August 2017. he 39-year-old soldier was sentenced to life on Friday, with a 22-year security sentence. He indicated that he would not appeal the conviction. “The file did not make it possible to determine the causes of Maëlys’ death and a possible sexual act committed on his person”corn “the sexual purpose seemed obvious to us, seemed obvious to me” said the prosecutor.
franceinfo: Are you satisfied with this trial, its progress and its conclusions?
Jacques Dalest: I think that the trial took place in very good conditions. Justice was done calmly, despite all the emotion that weighed throughout the debates, of course. Everything ended well. Personally, I am satisfied with the verdict, even if, as we know, we will not have the answers to all the questions. Assize courts do not always answer all the questions from civil parties. This is a situation that we encounter regularly, unfortunately.
It was not possible to have more explanations from Nordahl Lelandais?
I think everything has been done. The president, on several occasions, asked him the essential question: “Why the murder of Maëlys?”. Everyone has tried, the lawyers for the civil parties, myself, to find out the underlying reason for this act, but unfortunately, we will not know it definitively. The file itself did not make it possible to determine exactly the causes of the death of Maëlys and a possible sexual act committed on his person.
For you, the sexual motive was obvious?
It was very difficult to imagine anything else, in this abduction of this little Maëlys, than a sexual reason, taking into account in particular the very obvious addiction to sex of the person concerned, the facts that he had already perpetrated on little cousins previously. At 3 o’clock in the morning, kidnapping a child after a wedding, unless you ask for a ransom, which is obviously out of the question… The sexual reason, the sexual purpose seemed obvious to us, seemed obvious to me.
Nordahl Lelandais is not appealing, and neither are you. Couldn’t an appeal trial have provided answers to these questions?
I would have a hard time appealing when the decision complies with my requisitions. I don’t see any obvious progress, assuming a second trial is organised. A trial is something terrible for a family [d’une victime]. I think it’s good, it’s satisfying that we’re done today.