The companion of a woman, discovered dead in 2018 in the Sambre river in Maubeuge, was indicted at the end of January for murder. The investigation was initially directed towards a suicide, we learned Monday from a judicial source. The man, whose indictment dates back to January 26, was remanded in custody, said Valenciennes prosecutor Christelle Dumont, confirming information from the Sunday newspaper.
The defendant was also sentenced in early 2023 to six years’ imprisonment for the rape of an ex-companion in 2015. The lawyer for the 48-year-old victim’s family, Maître Hugo Van Cauwenberge, made told AFP of the “relief” of its customers. “They said to themselves that their fight was not in vain”, whereas they had previously “the impression of preaching in the desert”, he underlined.
“Elements seemed disturbing to us”
In the file, the investigation had initially been carried out for suspicious death and the justice had pronounced a dismissal in December 2020. But “elements seemed to us to be disturbing”, reports master Van Cauwenberge. Among other elements casting doubt on the thesis of suicide, the lawyer had noted the incompatibility between the position of the driver’s seat of the car found on the banks of the Sambre and the size of the forties, who could not have reached the pedals. He had asked to seat the victim’s twin sister in the vehicle to highlight this point.
Following the dismissal, the family had seized the chamber of the instruction, obtaining the opening of a judicial investigation for assassination. “The investigating judge was initially seized in a procedural framework from which he could not escape, in this case, that of the search for the causes of the worrying disappearance, which did not allow him to act coercively”, explains the prosecutor.