2023-12-04 15:20:11
MISCELLANEOUS FACTS – Friday 1is December, ended the first week of trial of Monique Olivier, the ex-wife of serial killer Michel Fourniret, for complicity in kidnapping, rape and murder, before the Nanterre Assize Court. A trial which, beyond the examination of the charges against the ex-wife of the “Ogre of the Ardennes”, took the form of a criticism of the French judicial institution. From the organization of the current trial, through the indifference regarding the fate of the young girls under the responsibility of the DDASS to the slowness of justice, the grievances expressed are numerous.
Witnesses, civil parties, defense, all express their dissatisfaction with the French judicial institution. Even the way the current trial is taking place is contested by civil parties.
Friday, Me Didier Seban, the lawyer for Estelle Mouzin’s father, created a hearing incident by reproaching the president of the Assize Court “a process which does not respect adversarial matters”. In question, the refusal of the magistrate to allow the lawyers to question Monique Olivier outside the time slots planned in the hearing schedule.
“We have the feeling that you do not want us to question Monique Olivier,” accused the lawyer. “My customers are angry because they have been waiting for 30 years!”he added. “We know that we have to question Monique Olivier at length. However, when we have a crucial witness who makes revelations, we cannot question him!”
“I am very angry with the justice of Auxerre”, explains Angélique L.
Angélique L., a friend of Marie-Angèle Domèce has just declared that she had seen Michel Fourniret and his wife lurking near her own home. Information that she had kept quiet until today.
For what ? This witness says he had the feeling of being “taken for a liar” after having herself attempted to file a complaint for rape against her mother’s partner, complaint “gone straight into the trash”, according to the young woman. She also claims to have gone to the Auxerre court following the disappearance of Marie-Angèle, and to have seen a judge who simply told her: “It’s not none of my business, Marie-Angèle.”
“I am very angry with the justice of Auxerre”, explains Angélique L., sobs in her voice. “II find it unacceptable not to have been heard at the time.” And to express his regrets to the families of the victims.
Angélique L.’s reproaches echo the declarations of other friends of Marie-Angèle Domèce and those of an educator of the time: the lack of consideration of justice for the young girls of the DDASS, “the girls of the home”. All the witnesses without exception affirm that a runaway on the part of Marie-Angèle Domèce, a kind and fearful young girl, very attached to her host family, was not possible, and all also explain that their cries of alarm encountered judicial indifference.
The link between the Fournirets and the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin should have been made more quickly
A lack of interest confirmed by the former investigating judge of Charleville-Mézières, Pascal Préaubert. “Not much has been done in Yonne,” notes the former magistrate. “At the time, we noted the disappearance and six months later, we closed the file,” he adds..
But Pascal Préaubert and Anne Devigne, another former investigating judge from Charleville-Mézières, are also the subject of criticism. The lawyers of the civil parties like the defense lawyer denounce the delays, between the trial of 2008 and that of 2018, where the Fourniret spouses already appeared, until that of 2023, where Monique Olivier will be judged alone. The magistrates, put on the grill by one and the other, defend themselves by explaining that certain files were not ready to be referred to the assizes. Anne Devigne argues that she hoped that other bodies of the couple’s victims would be found (which was not the case) but offers some words of regret.
The lawyers for the civil parties also believe that the link between the Fournirets and the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin should have been made more quickly.
Finally, lawyers for the civil parties continue to assert that the bulk of the cases are based on the in-depth work carried out by the Belgian police…
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