Sentenced to twenty-eight years of criminal imprisonment in April 2022 by the Doubs Assize Court for the assassination of his Japanese ex-girlfriend, Narumi Kurosaki, Nicolas Zepeda obtained, Thursday, February 23, the dismissal of his trial in call “at a later session”. The 32-year-old Chilean and his parents seem to have been engaged for a week in a scorched earth strategy, both media and legal.
It all started with the defection of the lawyer appointed ten months earlier to succeed Jacqueline Laffont, who had defended him at first instance in Besançon, in April 2022. In a letter read by the president of the court, on the first day of the trial, Tuesday, February 21 at the Vesoul courthouse, Antoine Vey explained that he was withdrawing, for lack of having received from his client a written mandate to ensure his defense.
Nicolas Zepeda immediately appointed two new advisers, Renaud Portejoie and Julien Dreyfus. Thursday, February 23, the latter unsurprisingly requested the postponement of the trial to another session “before summer or early fall” to find out about “8,000 to 10,000 odds [pages] » folder. Me Portejoie placed full responsibility for the situation on the “failure” of his Parisian colleague, calling it “ absolutely unfair” the conscience clause mentioned in his letter, which implied a disagreement on the defense strategy between the lawyer and his client.
“This trial is over”
“My mission is not difficult, it is strictly impossible. What image of the judicial institution will we give if the trial is maintained? With completely destitute lawyers and an absolutely colossal stake [la réclusion criminelle à perpétuité]. We are not going to artificially continue a trial where a man has no lawyer able to assist him”, observed M.e Portejoie, before launching at court: “This trial is over. It is up to you to return it so that it is exemplary and that justice passes. “If you refused to dismiss the trial, it would be a defenseless trial, a truncated trial”added M.e Dreyfus.
Both the Advocate General, Etienne Manteaux, who had already supported the accusation during the first trial, and Sylvie Galley, the lawyer for the mother and sisters of Narumi Kurosaki, present at the hearing, denounced a “instrumentalization” of justice by Nicolas Zepeda. “We can wonder why Nicolas Zepeda slips away at the last moment. It’s also a way for him to show the man he is, the control he exercises over justice, like the control he exercised over Narumi… Yes, the rights of the defense are sacred but are not not absolute”observed the Advocate General, accusing of “limitless duplicity” the Chilean.
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