The Chambéry courthouse. – AFP
Nordahl Lelandais will appear for the first time this Monday before an assize court. Four years after the facts, the 38-year-old former soldier should settle in from 10 a.m. in the accused’s box in Chambéry to answer for ten days for the murder of Arthur Noyer.
The appearance of Nordahl Lelandais, famous for his implication in the Maëlys affair, before the Assize Court of Savoy will polarize the attention of the media and the general public. The murderous drift of a man without stories a priori does not cease to confuse and intrigue.
Other unsuccessful searches
Its first appearance is also particularly expected. For the time being, we only know of a few private photos captured before he was placed in solitary confinement for three and a half years in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier prison. In the fall of 2017, after his implication in the Maëlys affair, in Isère, Savoy investigators made the connection with the disappearance of Arthur Noyer, a 23-year-old alpine hunter.
When, on December 20, Nordahl Lelandais is indicted for having murdered the corporal, the prosecutor openly raises a question: is he linked to other disappearances? Three years and hundreds of cases studied later, no known material element comes to accredit this thesis, which nevertheless contributed to constitute, around Lelandais, one of those legal enigmas which unleash passions.
Some 120 journalists have been accredited for this trial around which the police force has been strengthened. The Maëlys trial will probably take place in 2022 in Grenoble. After jury selection and a summary of the investigation on Monday morning, the afternoon hearing is due to begin with a review of his life course.
A fatal stop
On the night of April 11 to 12, 2017, Arthur Noyer, who has just spent the evening in a discotheque, is hitchhiked by Nordahl Lelandais in Chambéry. During a stop in a parking lot on the outskirts of the city, the two men come to blows for a reason that remains unclear. Nordahl Lelandais admitted in March 2018 to having given “very violent” blows to Arthur Noyer following a first blow given by the soldier. At the end of the fight, he told investigators, Corporal Noyer is unconscious, Nordahl Lelandais slips his body into the trunk of his gray Audi, rolls for about twenty kilometers and then places it on the side of the road. ‘a small mountain road.
As in the Maëlys case, the accused rejects any intention to kill, a version that the investigating judges did not retain, who sent him back for intentional homicide. The verdict is expected around May 12. The accused faces thirty years of criminal imprisonment.