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Le grand entretien avec Alain Jakubowicz : "On ne refuse pas le dossier Nordahl Lelandais"
Nordahl Lelandais' lawyer is publishing a book, that will be released on 14 November ("Either I win or I learn" by publisher Plon), on his profession and the case that is still ongoing.
You rarely see a lawyer write a book about his or her own client in an ongoing case. Why this book, in which you write having "only blows to take"?
(Sighs...) It's totally unusual and abnormal, I know I'll be blamed for it, and I'll gladly accept it from the people who read the book. Until Nordahl Lelandais, I was a beloved and respected lawyer, most of the time on the side of the victims. But I am the same lawyer, the same man, attached to the same values and the same struggles.
But now you' re on the edge, between professional and educational secrecy?
The investigation was done by the media and in the media and I do not make any revelations. I totally endorse what I write because I think it's right. My problem was of course not to harm my client, it would have been the ultimate disgrace on the part of a lawyer, and not to give the impression of idealizing or humanizing him. It's a very complicated balance.
How do you accept such a file?
Adrenaline. That's terrible. Every lawyer's dream is to get an innocent man acquitted when everything overwhelms him. Being alone against everyone. It's not very honourable, but it's human. When I was called to take this case, I was convinced that it was the child's family who had asked me. I spent very difficult moments with my conscience, but when you are a lawyer, you don't refuse the Lelandais case.
=== Bio express ===
"It's a profession that eats you up. But it's not just a job. We live, we breathe, lawyer." At the age of 66, Alain Jakubowicz, a member of the Lyon Bar, is one of the most important French lawyers in terms of professionalism and commitment.
"The fight against racism and anti-Semitism is my life," the former president of Licra acknowledges. He is among the only ones to have participated in the three major historical trials linked to the Occupation: those of Klaus Barbie, Paul Touvier and Maurice Papon.
With an important business clientele, he also defended the victims of the Air France Rio-Paris flight, the Mont-Blanc tunnel fire, but also common rights cases and stars such as Karim Benzema.
=======
On 4 December 2017, three months after Nordahl Lelandais' arrest, you decided to defend him publicly on BFM TV. Why?
I blame the DA, he caused me do this. This happens at the beginning of the case. So we're working on the case. When the prosecutor publicly fixes the time of Maëlys' disappearance during the evening, I have proof that this is not true. I have fifteen testimonies, and not of the buddies of my client, but of the family, who see her after that time. It's true that at Ruth Elkrieff's TV programme, I explode, I become angry: "That's enough! That's not possible!" And you know the rest.
The rest is his indictment for the death of Arthur Noyer, and the discovery of Maëlys' blood in his car?
It's an earthquake for the case, and honestly I ask myself the question: can I stay? But there is such a rush, such abuses in the violations of the secrecy of the investigation that the nature of the case changes. I am always in the defence of a man, but also in the defence of a principle and I am starting a new Way of the Cross, against the excesses of which Nordahl Lelandais becomes the symbol.
He told you he was innocent. Did he betray your trust?
I can't blame him for lying to me. In France, defendants have the right to lie, including to their lawyers. Honestly, I anticipated it. I didn't fall completely from the tree, but the fall was violent. At first, at the very beginning, with my Don Quixote side, I thought to myself that he might have hidden her and I wanted this child to be found alive, that I should contribute to it for her sake, the child's, for the family and for him, because it was in his interest, if it was him.
It was still very presumptuous....
Totally! Totally! But wait, you don't do this job if you're not presumptuous, if you don't think you can move mountains. That's what the client is always waiting for, for his lawyer to work miracles. We're like doctors, we save lives... or not. I was presumptuous, I assume, because I hate to suffer and in this case I am only suffering. So I'm gnashing my teeth, working on my case and writing a book.
======
Throughout his book, Me Jakubowicz draws an uncompromising portrait of his client, and key scenes that marked the ongoing investigation.
the meeting
(p. 162) "While one might expect from a man who claimed to be innocent of such serious facts as indignity, revolt and shout at his innocence, I had before me a man who was slaughtered. What was the true face of Nordahl Lelandais? The one of the respectful boy, with whom the guards had no problem whatsoever and who replied to the investigating judges with "Yes Madam, "no Madam"? Or the one about the disturbing marginal, the violent party boy the press was talking about? Who was manipulating who? Nordahl Lelandais appeared to me as a kind of lost person, the fruit of our time and our society. Apart from his passion for dogs and motorcycles, nothing seemed to interest him. I asked him about his interests. The desert, or almost. […]. By the age of 34, he had failed almost everything."
the proof
(p. 175) "I had to break the silence. I said, "I think you understood the situation." He replied, "Yes." At least it was useful for something. Since he could not contest the facts, it was his responsibility to reveal where Maëlys' body was located. If there was anything I could be of use for at that moment, it was at least that. For once, his interest was in justice. I asked him if he knew where the victim was. He answered in the affirmative. It was as if he had just confessed to me that he had killed Maëlys."
the discovery
(p. 181) "Everyone, silent, observed him. He looked, turned his head to the right, to the left, bent down, swept the ground with his hand, stood up... As if he felt the place. Certainly, we were close to the destination. In any case, I think that's what we all felt, suspended from his actions. He then broke the silence. "It's there." I asked him if he was sure. He replied, "Yes. - Are you sure? - Yes"."
the reconstruction
(p. 203) "The man was in front of us. The little girl was replaced by a large rag doll. All eyes were focused on the passenger compartment of the car, this Audi being the only witness to what had happened. Concentrated, he knew what was expected of him. He had to reproduce, as faithfully as possible, the gestures that had been his in this vehicle at that precise moment of the night. "
"What we witnessed shocked, I am convinced, all those who were present. For my part, I had no idea that it was possible to strike with such violence in the position he was in. The court will have to say how and why when the time comes. For the time being, I was paralysed. I couldn't help but think of the girl's parents who were a few meters away from me..."
======
When the case turns around, your goal becomes to find Maëlys' body. Is this again the role of the lawyer?
It was necessary and indispensable and I think I am there in my role as an auxiliary of justice. Anyway, if he had asked me to contest the blood stain, I wouldn't have remained. I would never go against the obvious. I then know that strategically, we have to move very quickly. It is checkmate. He lied to me, he killed a child and I have to live with it, tell myself that a child is dead, that whoever killed her, I am defending him. It's brutal.
He's asking you about his release from prison. Strange?
I have a very technical perspective on this: a real life sentence, there are only four or five people who have had it, like Fourniret. Nordahl Lelandais is not among them, clearly.
Not like Fourniret? But the gendarmes are going through loads of files!
For two years now, an elite cell of the gendarmerie has been cross-cutting and finding nothing. It is a reality. They can't find anything, because there's nothing. I have got to know this man, I am deeply convinced of this, and not only because he told me so.
You have obtained the withdrawal of the novel about your client written by Michel Moatti from Montpellier...
He played the game, he tried, he failed and he was correct. Today, Nordahl Lelandais has become a marketing product. There are T-shirts with his logo on them that are sold on the internet. We are coining coins around this man and frankly, we cannot say that this guy is a role model. It is staggering. Television justice has become a market whose objective is not information but profitability. There are no more journalists on the set, but "experts", and it's a barter game: come and take up airtime and I'll give you some notoriety. It's very dangerous. We have to stop this excess.
BBM
Nordahl Lelandais' lawyer is publishing a book, that will be released on 14 November ("Either I win or I learn" by publisher Plon), on his profession and the case that is still ongoing.
You rarely see a lawyer write a book about his or her own client in an ongoing case. Why this book, in which you write having "only blows to take"?
(Sighs...) It's totally unusual and abnormal, I know I'll be blamed for it, and I'll gladly accept it from the people who read the book. Until Nordahl Lelandais, I was a beloved and respected lawyer, most of the time on the side of the victims. But I am the same lawyer, the same man, attached to the same values and the same struggles.
But now you' re on the edge, between professional and educational secrecy?
The investigation was done by the media and in the media and I do not make any revelations. I totally endorse what I write because I think it's right. My problem was of course not to harm my client, it would have been the ultimate disgrace on the part of a lawyer, and not to give the impression of idealizing or humanizing him. It's a very complicated balance.
How do you accept such a file?
Adrenaline. That's terrible. Every lawyer's dream is to get an innocent man acquitted when everything overwhelms him. Being alone against everyone. It's not very honourable, but it's human. When I was called to take this case, I was convinced that it was the child's family who had asked me. I spent very difficult moments with my conscience, but when you are a lawyer, you don't refuse the Lelandais case.
=== Bio express ===
"It's a profession that eats you up. But it's not just a job. We live, we breathe, lawyer." At the age of 66, Alain Jakubowicz, a member of the Lyon Bar, is one of the most important French lawyers in terms of professionalism and commitment.
"The fight against racism and anti-Semitism is my life," the former president of Licra acknowledges. He is among the only ones to have participated in the three major historical trials linked to the Occupation: those of Klaus Barbie, Paul Touvier and Maurice Papon.
With an important business clientele, he also defended the victims of the Air France Rio-Paris flight, the Mont-Blanc tunnel fire, but also common rights cases and stars such as Karim Benzema.
=======
On 4 December 2017, three months after Nordahl Lelandais' arrest, you decided to defend him publicly on BFM TV. Why?
I blame the DA, he caused me do this. This happens at the beginning of the case. So we're working on the case. When the prosecutor publicly fixes the time of Maëlys' disappearance during the evening, I have proof that this is not true. I have fifteen testimonies, and not of the buddies of my client, but of the family, who see her after that time. It's true that at Ruth Elkrieff's TV programme, I explode, I become angry: "That's enough! That's not possible!" And you know the rest.
The rest is his indictment for the death of Arthur Noyer, and the discovery of Maëlys' blood in his car?
It's an earthquake for the case, and honestly I ask myself the question: can I stay? But there is such a rush, such abuses in the violations of the secrecy of the investigation that the nature of the case changes. I am always in the defence of a man, but also in the defence of a principle and I am starting a new Way of the Cross, against the excesses of which Nordahl Lelandais becomes the symbol.
He told you he was innocent. Did he betray your trust?
I can't blame him for lying to me. In France, defendants have the right to lie, including to their lawyers. Honestly, I anticipated it. I didn't fall completely from the tree, but the fall was violent. At first, at the very beginning, with my Don Quixote side, I thought to myself that he might have hidden her and I wanted this child to be found alive, that I should contribute to it for her sake, the child's, for the family and for him, because it was in his interest, if it was him.
It was still very presumptuous....
Totally! Totally! But wait, you don't do this job if you're not presumptuous, if you don't think you can move mountains. That's what the client is always waiting for, for his lawyer to work miracles. We're like doctors, we save lives... or not. I was presumptuous, I assume, because I hate to suffer and in this case I am only suffering. So I'm gnashing my teeth, working on my case and writing a book.
======
Throughout his book, Me Jakubowicz draws an uncompromising portrait of his client, and key scenes that marked the ongoing investigation.
the meeting
(p. 162) "While one might expect from a man who claimed to be innocent of such serious facts as indignity, revolt and shout at his innocence, I had before me a man who was slaughtered. What was the true face of Nordahl Lelandais? The one of the respectful boy, with whom the guards had no problem whatsoever and who replied to the investigating judges with "Yes Madam, "no Madam"? Or the one about the disturbing marginal, the violent party boy the press was talking about? Who was manipulating who? Nordahl Lelandais appeared to me as a kind of lost person, the fruit of our time and our society. Apart from his passion for dogs and motorcycles, nothing seemed to interest him. I asked him about his interests. The desert, or almost. […]. By the age of 34, he had failed almost everything."
the proof
(p. 175) "I had to break the silence. I said, "I think you understood the situation." He replied, "Yes." At least it was useful for something. Since he could not contest the facts, it was his responsibility to reveal where Maëlys' body was located. If there was anything I could be of use for at that moment, it was at least that. For once, his interest was in justice. I asked him if he knew where the victim was. He answered in the affirmative. It was as if he had just confessed to me that he had killed Maëlys."
the discovery
(p. 181) "Everyone, silent, observed him. He looked, turned his head to the right, to the left, bent down, swept the ground with his hand, stood up... As if he felt the place. Certainly, we were close to the destination. In any case, I think that's what we all felt, suspended from his actions. He then broke the silence. "It's there." I asked him if he was sure. He replied, "Yes. - Are you sure? - Yes"."
the reconstruction
(p. 203) "The man was in front of us. The little girl was replaced by a large rag doll. All eyes were focused on the passenger compartment of the car, this Audi being the only witness to what had happened. Concentrated, he knew what was expected of him. He had to reproduce, as faithfully as possible, the gestures that had been his in this vehicle at that precise moment of the night. "
"What we witnessed shocked, I am convinced, all those who were present. For my part, I had no idea that it was possible to strike with such violence in the position he was in. The court will have to say how and why when the time comes. For the time being, I was paralysed. I couldn't help but think of the girl's parents who were a few meters away from me..."
======
When the case turns around, your goal becomes to find Maëlys' body. Is this again the role of the lawyer?
It was necessary and indispensable and I think I am there in my role as an auxiliary of justice. Anyway, if he had asked me to contest the blood stain, I wouldn't have remained. I would never go against the obvious. I then know that strategically, we have to move very quickly. It is checkmate. He lied to me, he killed a child and I have to live with it, tell myself that a child is dead, that whoever killed her, I am defending him. It's brutal.
He's asking you about his release from prison. Strange?
I have a very technical perspective on this: a real life sentence, there are only four or five people who have had it, like Fourniret. Nordahl Lelandais is not among them, clearly.
Not like Fourniret? But the gendarmes are going through loads of files!
For two years now, an elite cell of the gendarmerie has been cross-cutting and finding nothing. It is a reality. They can't find anything, because there's nothing. I have got to know this man, I am deeply convinced of this, and not only because he told me so.
You have obtained the withdrawal of the novel about your client written by Michel Moatti from Montpellier...
He played the game, he tried, he failed and he was correct. Today, Nordahl Lelandais has become a marketing product. There are T-shirts with his logo on them that are sold on the internet. We are coining coins around this man and frankly, we cannot say that this guy is a role model. It is staggering. Television justice has become a market whose objective is not information but profitability. There are no more journalists on the set, but "experts", and it's a barter game: come and take up airtime and I'll give you some notoriety. It's very dangerous. We have to stop this excess.
BBM
