This is a new episode that is announced in the Omar Raddad legal saga. After the presentation by his defense of “new elements”, the former Moroccan gardener must be fixed Thursday on the consequences of a new request for revision of his trial, twenty-eight years after his conviction for the murder of Ghislaine Marchal of which he claims to be innocent.
The first had been rejected twenty years ago, but Omar Raddad filed a new request on June 24, 2021, thirty years to the day after the discovery of the body of Ghislaine Marchal, the wealthy widow of an automotive supplier. His gardener had been sentenced to eighteen years’ imprisonment, then pardoned but not cleared.
He had been designated by the inscription “Omar killed me” drawn with the victim’s blood at the crime scene, in Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes). A lack of conjugation which placed the case among the most famous and controversial criminal files in France.
Four unknown male DNA at the crime scene
Today, Omar Raddad bases his hopes on scientific progress in the field of DNA and a law that relaxes the criteria for obtaining a review of a trial. In the long legal process towards a hypothetical referral to the Court of Revision, his lawyer Sylvie Noachovitch prides herself on having taken a first “step” after obtaining in December that additional investigations be carried out.
This additional information aimed to determine the scope of the conclusions of a genetic expert called upon by the lawyer, concerning four unidentified male DNA found in 2015 on seals from the crime scene and which do not correspond to the genetic profile of ex-gardener. Ghislaine Marchal was found dead at the age of 65 in the boiler room of her property on June 24, 1991. Two accusatory inscriptions in letters of blood (“Omar m’a tuiller” and “Omar m’a t”) had been discovered on two doors.
In notes from 2019 and 2020, the genetics expert revealed the importance of one of the four unknown male DNAs, present in many places and in particular on the inscription “Omar m’a t”, alone or mixed with the victim’s blood. The expert favored the hypothesis of a deposit of the DNA during the facts and not of a later “pollution”, in particular by the investigators. In other words, these genetic traces could have been deposited by the author of the inscription, who would then not be Ghislaine Marchal but potentially the real murderer, estimates the defense of Omar Raddad.
“All hopes” of a “favorable” decision
Since this first step, Me Sylvie Noachovitch presented on May 19 to the investigating committee of the Court of Revision other “new elements”, this time from a “secret investigation” of the gendarmerie between 2002 and 2004, after the confidences of an informant on a possible villainous motive. These investigations were revealed in a book published in March, ministry of injusticeby Jean-Michel Décugis, Pauline Guéna and Marc Leplongeon.
During a final hearing behind closed doors, on September 15, the defense of Omar Raddad asked for the hearings of the gendarmes who had taken part in this investigation, as well as the appointment of a laboratory specializing in kinship research to determine to whom belong the unknown DNA found on the inscriptions. According to a source familiar with the matter, the Advocate General said he was in favor of an expertise, but on the other hand asked that the gendarmerie investigation be dismissed.
“We have every hope that a decision will be favourable,” declared Me Sylvie Noachovitch on leaving this hearing with Omar Raddad. On Thursday, the investigating committee can either order new additional information, or reject the request, or send it directly to the Court of Revision, which will have the last word on the organization of a new trial, an event extremely rare in France.