THREE MONTHS AFTER MAËLYS' DISAPPEARANCE THE SUSPECT HAS BEEN INDICTED ON CHARGES OF MURDER
LeMonde
http://www.lemonde.fr/police-justic...s-en-examen-pour-meurtre_5222858_1653578.html
The man suspected of kidnapping the 9-year-old girl was heard again by judges on Thursday. He continued to deny the facts during the hearing, which lasted almost eight hours.
Two crucial court sequences followed on Thursday 30 November in the case of the disappearance of little Maëlys during a wedding in August in Isère. Nordahl Lelandais, a former army dog-handler, was indicted for murder after being heard by the three judges in charge of the case. Earlier that same day, the man suspected of abducting the girl obtained the cancellation of his first statements in police custody after three months of investigation, with suspicions of violations of the secrecy of the investigation.
The 9-year-old Maëlys, who was wearing a sleeveless white dress that night, has not been found since her disappearance on the night of August 26-27 at a wedding party where 140 guests had gathered in Pont-de-Beauvoisin. The investigation, which involves twelve people, is continuing.
On Thursday, at the end of the hearing of Nordahl Lelandais, which lasted nearly eight hours, the prosecutor of the Republic of Grenoble, Jean-Yves Coquillat, recalled that the suspect benefited from the presumption of innocence and detailed his schedule. Twice that night, his vehicle was filmed "with a small, frail silhouette dressed in a white dress on the front seat" to the right of the driver, he said at a press conference. However, Mr. Lelandais continues to deny the facts.
The 34-year-old former soldier arrived Thursday morning, just before 9:30 a. m., at the Grenoble courthouse to be heard by investigating judges. The magistrates, two women and one man, had not seen him since his imprisonment on 3 September. The suspect was accompanied by his lawyer, Me Jakubowicz, who refrained from speaking to the media.
The judges returned to the entire case, and in particular to the seventeen hours at the heart of the investigation, starting on Sunday, August 27, at about 2:45 a. m., when the girl was last seen by her grandmother, and until 5:30 p. m., when the suspect came out of a car wash after meticulously cleaning his Audi A3.
According to the images from the station's video surveillance camera, the suspect washed his car for over two hours, including nearly forty minutes vacuuming the passenger compartment, focusing on the passenger side and the interior and exterior door handles on the passenger side and the interior and exterior door handles. He also used some polishing tissues, which he stored in a bag, a bag that was never found again, reports Le Parisien. On this point, Nordahl Lelandais assured that he wanted to sell his vehicle to a buyer, who has since been identified by the investigators.
However, one crucial element undermines his defence: Maëlys' DNA was found on the dashboard. According to the suspect, whose comments were reported by his lawyer, the girl was reportedly taken to the back seat of her Audi A3 during the evening in the company of a little blond boy - whose existence was not confirmed by the investigation. They would have wanted to see if his dogs, which he had previously told them about, were in the trunk, before coming out and going back to the party hall.
During the ceremony, the last-minute guest made several round trips back and forth between the party hall and the exterior. During his interviews, he had an explanation for each of his escapes, saying he was absent to: make sure his dogs locked in his car were okay, get beers or change his shorts "stained with wine and vomit" because of his intoxication.
According to an image from a video surveillance camera installed on the front of an optical store 800 metres from where the wedding was being held, the suspect would have been absent much longer. This photograph at the heart of the investigations would support the thesis of the abduction.
It shows a vehicle of which the judiciary considers that it is the suspect's, which Mr. Lelandais also disputes. In the images of this car, the front passenger seat shows "a frail, small-sized figure dressed in a white dress", as the girl did that night.
However, the investigators were satisfied that the vehicle was indeed Nordahl Lelandeis's vehicle, in particular because of a lack of illumination of the rear lights, the positioning of the stickers on the windscreen and the presence of a recognizable sticker, BFM-TV lists.
Another troubling element is his second mobile phone, the existence of which he had refrained from mentioning to the gendarmes, before the gendarmes got their hands on it. The night of the girl's disappearance, the device "pinged" several times, especially outside the party hall. The suspect assures that he went to buy cocaine near the place where his phone "pinged".
At about 4 a. m., when the gendarmes arrived at the scene of the ceremony, the suspect was not there, but his phone emitted radio waves near the hall, before he put it in plane mode, to reactivate it at about 7 a. m. The suspect was not there. This "to save battery", according to the suspect. The prosecutor stated that Nordahl Lelandais had requested the termination of his phone line the next day.
BBM
