“These three weeks will be terribly trying.” On the eve of the trial of Nordahl Lelandais, which opens Monday before the assizes of Isère, Fabien Rajon makes no mystery about the difficulty of the debates to come. Nor on the state of mind of his client. The lawyer knows it, Jennifer Cleyet-Marrel, the mother of little Maëlys, “expects nothing” from the accused. If not an ounce of truth.
The 8-year-old girl was killed on August 27, 2017 after a wedding celebrated in the town of Pont-de-Beauvoisin. A wedding during which she crossed paths with Nordahl Lelandais, a last-minute guest. The accused confessed six months later, after being confronted with irrefutable material evidence.
“Maëlys’ parents know that the advances towards the truth, they do not owe them to Lelandais but to the exceptional work of the investigators”, underlines Fabien Rajon. After meticulous technical and scientific investigations, the gendarmes ended up confusing the suspect. “Clearly, without them this matter would surely still be unsolved and would constitute a cold box moreover…”, adds the lawyer from Lyon.
Many gray areas in the file
However, many areas still remain in the file. How did the little girl get into the former soldier’s car? She who always asked permission before leaving a place. She who had remained calmly inside the village hall, not even trying to play outside during the evening. For the rest, the parents of the child prefer not to know.
“We protect ourselves by forbidding ourselves to imagine the worst even if, unconsciously, we know very well what happened”, confides the father of Maëlys, Joachim de Araujo at Dauphine Libere, during one of the interviews granted to the press before the trial. “Anyway, he’s a liar, supports the mother. He won’t say anything but he shattered the life of my little chick, who had her whole life ahead of her. He erased everything in a second like it didn’t matter. »
“The harm inflicted on them is exceptional”
The life of the Araujo family “stopped on August 27”. “The six-month period during which Lelandais refused to tell them where their daughter was was terribly hard for them to live with, points out Fabien Rajon. It was real hostage-taking, mental torture. The damage inflicted on them is exceptional. »
“Joachim pays a high price, confirms Laurent Boguet, the lawyer for Maëlys’ father. It cost him his mental health, his job, his marriage. The parents separated. It was unbearable for them to continue living in this house. They could no longer look at each other without reminding them of the tragic disappearance of their daughter. »
In the ranks of the civil parties, no one buys the hypothesis of an “involuntary” death, advanced by the accused since his confession, delivered on February 14, 2018. The former soldier is confined to the same version of the facts. He would have taken the child in his car to show him his dogs. He was annoyed to hear him cry and allegedly hit him several times, “without intending to kill him”.
“I don’t believe a treacherous word of it, slice Laurent Boguet before driving the point home. It is the fruit of the impulse of a predator who has set his sights on an 8-year-old child who has no capacity to resist”. For the Toulouse lawyer, there is no doubt about the real intentions of the accused. “I don’t think he simply kidnapped Maëlys to, as he always claimed, allow him to go see the dogs at his home,” he says. Nordahl Lelandais has extremely powerful impulses and a questioning relationship with sexuality. Obviously, he has great needs. And when, he has sexual needs, all the dikes are destroyed. »
A “predator” with “pedocriminal inclinations”
According to Laurent Boguet, the upcoming trial will “address the real questions”, namely the “pedocriminal inclinations” of the accused. Because after the discovery of the body, the experts noted that part of Maëlys’ hair had been “cut” and her dress “lacerated”, dismissing the hypothesis according to which tears would have been caused by scratches from brambles or animals. During the investigation, the gendarmes also found numerous child pornography videos in Nordahl Lelandais’ telephones and computer. The man will also be tried, during these three weeks, for the sexual assaults of two of his little cousins, committed respectively a month and a half and a week before the murder of Maëlys.
“Nordahl Lelandais is part of a logic of seduction. He creates a bond with his victim, abuses it to kidnap her and then satisfy her needs,” accuses Laurent Boguet. And to analyze: “He has a perfect mastery of the prohibited nature of his acts. He puts his phone on airplane mode, he hides the bodies. He spares no effort to remove all forms of traces. We are dealing with a real criminal who does everything to avoid having to pay the bill. »
On the defense side, radio silence. Alain Jakubowicz, Nordahl Lelandais’ lawyer, does not usually speak before a trial. He did not want to deviate from his principles, he told 20 minutes. His client faces life imprisonment. The verdict is expected on February 18.
“We hope that he will remain in prison as long as possible”, confide in unison the parents of Maëlys to the Dauphine Libere. “Basically, they were, like all the wedding guests, deceived by Lelandais. Today, their fear is that he will manage to deceive the jurors of the assize court, ”supports Fabien Rajon. And to conclude: “They want justice to take the full measure of the dangerousness of this individual. »