Business Omar Raddad

The business Omar Raddad is a series of events implying a marked gardener of the murder of one of its customers, Ghislaine Marchal, a financially easy widow.

The very mysterious and theatrical character of the places of the crime and the bounces of the investigation will give place to the one of the Procès médiatisés of the time in France.

History

Protagonists

the victim, Ghislaine Marchal, a financially easy widow. She then lived on the heights of Mougins in her villa the Chamade .
the defendant, Omar Raddad, gardener of Mrs. old Marchal of less than 30 years at the time of the facts.
Main Jacques Vergès, the lawyer of Omar Raddad.

The murder

On Sunday, June 23, 1991, Ghislaine Marchal is on the point of going to lunch in nearby friends.

With 11:48, it finishes a phone conversation with one of her friends who must come to visit him the following day.

With 13:30, wondering about its delay, its neighbors telephone without success with the villa.

This day Omar Raddad had changed her timetable without warning anybody, except that to which it had gone, Mrs Pascal, in a close property. He stated to be returned at his place to lunch, which was not confirmed by the various witnesses.

Anguish

Larded of a stab by its attacker at the bottom of the cellar of its villa, Ghislaine Marchal, during its anguish which lasted nearly twenty minutes, would have started by writing “Omar has to kill me” (with the grammatical mistake; according to defense, Ghislaine Marchal would never have made such a grammatical mistake) without taking enough blood on its finger. Then it would have started again once again a little further on another door of the cellar, until tracing the second sentence “Omar has me T”, unfinished because it did not have enough any more of force, thus designating the culprit.

This file gave place to an enormous media mobilization, the king of the Morocco even intervened.

The lawsuit

Accused of voluntary Homicide, Omar Raddad is écroué with Grasse on June 27th, 1991. Its lawsuit opens in February 1994 in front of the sitted the Alpes-Maritimes. Maître Jacques Vergès adopts the following line:

In a setting in machiavelic scene, the true murderer would have used the hand of Mrs. Marchal to make show the gardener.
Christian Veilleux, the son, does not have a good relationship with his/her mother.
the lover of the cleaning lady, a character known under the nickname of “Pierrot the Insane one”, but the investigators and especially both graphologists estimated (with a probability of two-third), that the author of the message was well Mrs. Marchal, thus sealing the fate of the young Morrocan: eighteen years of imprisonment.

One will retain the sentence shock of Master Rods referring to the Dreyfus business vis-a-vis the journalists: " 100 years ago one condemned an officer because it was the wrong to be Jewish, today one condemns a gardener because he is the wrong to be maghrebin."

As for the genetic analysis, it had not been used at the time of discovered body of Mrs. Marchal since in 1991, this technique was not whereas with its first stammerings. Then the traces are scrambled.

The closure of the door of the cellar shown by the gendarmes was composed of a foldable bed, a bar out of iron and various heavy objects. As of the arrival of the gendarmes, the door was locked by these objects in this provision: the bar was slipped under the door, the bed held the bar of the interior, making it possible the latter not to fall and not to lock the door of the cellar. The other objects were placed behind the bed. This device shown by the gendarmes was disputed by defense. Indeed, it was difficult to set up, but nevertheless was used like proof against Omar Raddad with her lawsuit.

Another proof seemed contestable: the sentence " Omar has me tuer". An important fault that Mrs. Marchal could not have made. Indeed, the papers found by the gendarmes in the villa, who indicated the tasks to be made, did not comprise any grammatical mistake.

The testimony of the two graphologists insisting on the fact that the inscriptions were indeed written by Ghislaine Marchal carries the conviction of sworn even if no one is not unaware of that graphology is not an exact science.

Grace

May 10th, 1996 the president Jacques Chirac grants the grace partial to Omar Raddad reducing his sorrow four years and eight month. The decree will be signed on May 23rd. Omar Raddad is released on September 4th, 1998. It had an irreproachable behavior in detention, from where the given favorable opinion in February of this year by the advisory committee of release on parole. Omar Raddad finds freedom but with the eyes of justice, it remains guilty.

Omar Raddad, very affected by this judgment, made 45 days of hunger strike and tried to put an end to her days by swallowing razors.

Doubts

February 2nd, 2000, the Commission of revision of the penal judgments orders new investigations and in particular, a new graphological expertise to know if Mrs Marchal is the author of the inscriptions " Omar has me tuer". Two experts are named: Anne Bisotti and Francoise Ricci D' Arnoux. October 31st, 2000 these two graphologists submit a report of 150 pages in which they are said unable to certify that the victim is well the author of the inscriptions. On the other hand the blood which allowed the drafting of the messages is well that of Ghislaine Marchal.

January 14th, 2001, justice orders a new expertise on a wood rafter having been used to kill Ghislaine Marchal.

February 20th, 2001, the male DNA found on the door of the boiler room is not that of Omar Raddad. The experts cannot specify with whom belongs this genetic print, nor its source.

According to a witness, Guy Moyrin, being presented in the form of a former driver of Joseph Di Mambro, Mrs. Marchal would have been member of the Ordre of the solar temple since 1982 and would have wished to leave the sect. He would have led itself the assassins on the place of the crime.

External bonds

Forum on the business Raddad

Sources

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