The Charleville-Mézières criminal court (Ardennes) judged on November 27, 2023 a case of sexual assault involving Nordahl Lelandais, following a complaint filed by one of his little cousins for facts dating back to 2017. Two years in prison were required.
Nordahl Lelandais appeared before the criminal court of Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes), this Monday, November 27, 2023. The one who has already been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of little Maëlys de Araujo, was tried for sexual assault, which he denies having committed it, on one of his little cousins in 2017. She was then 14 years old.
The former dog handler, who remained impassive at the opening of the hearing, was prosecuted for “sexual assault imposed on a minor under 15 years old” And “threat or act of intimidation to persuade a victim not to file a complaint”. The teenager claims to have been touched in March 2017 on her buttocks and chest. She filed a complaint two years later. Nordahl Lelandais was indicted in this case in 2020.
The hearing in Charleville-Mézières was held behind closed doors. It lasted almost six hours. The prosecutor requested two years in prison for Nordahl Lelandais, who faced a maximum of twenty years of criminal imprisonment. He also requested registration in the Automated Judicial File of Perpetrators of Sexual and Violent Offenses (Fijais), as indicated at the end of the trial, shortly after 8 p.m., by the lawyers for the victim and the defense.
The lawyer for the civil parties, Me Arnault Monnier, regretted the defiant behavior of Nordahl Lelandais at the hearing, in particular calling into question the grief of the alleged victim. The defendant once again denied the facts until the end of the trial.
For the defense, Mr. Mathieu Moutous, it is “a case of word against word.” “Nordahl Lelandais doesn’t understand why his little cousin accuses him”, he said at the end of the hearing. The decision will be rendered on January 12, 2024.
Nordahl Lelandais, 40, was sentenced in February 2022 by the Isère Assize Court to life imprisonment with a 22-year security measure for the kidnapping and murder of Maëlys de Araujo, 8 years old, during a wedding evening in Pont-de-Beauvoisin (Isère). He was also on trial for sexual assault on two little cousins aged 4 and 6 during the same summer of 2017.
He had admitted the murder and these touchings, filmed with his phone while the girls were sleeping. After the screening of these videos at the assize trial, he admitted inclinations “pedophiles”. During this trial, the attorney general described the ex-soldier as “absolute social danger” And of “large predator”.
He had already been sentenced in May 2021 in Chambéry to twenty years’ imprisonment for the murder of the young corporal Arthur Noyer whom he had picked up while hitchhiking in Chambéry in April 2017. Nordahl Lelandais did not appeal these convictions.