Pascal Praud and you - Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès: were there any failures in the investigation? The answer from a specialist in the matter

Gauthier Delomez 4:46 p.m., January 22, 2024

Were there any failures in the investigation into the murders committed by Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès in early April 2011 and his flight?

If it is difficult to definitively answer this question, Romain Puertolas, former police captain and author of the book 

, provides some answers in the show

.

Questioned live by Coralie, a listener from Europe 1, he returns to the case of Michel Rétif, a close friend of the man who killed his wife and four children almost 13 years ago.

“At the level of judicial information, there are things that surprised me, like this story of Michel Rétif. We have serious and consistent clues which suggest that he may have assisted him in his escape, because of this telephone conversation of April 6, 2011, the day after the last murder, reports Romain Puertolas on Europe 1.

A close friend heard as a simple witness

This close friend, who then worked with the murderer for three days, was nevertheless heard as a simple witness in this case, which questions the former police officer.

“Is this a strategy of the investigating judge, so as not to panic?” he wonders, believing that the subsequent creation of a surveillance system by the Montpellier BRI was too late according to him .

"(The investigators) say to themselves 'perhaps he will communicate with him, or (Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès) will perhaps come... In the end, nothing happens. And we leave it there. That's it which surprises me,” asserts this specialist in the case.

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When he was interviewed, Michel Rétif indicated that he no longer remembered what the two men had spoken about during the telephone conversation of April 6.

"Coincidentally, he's the only person (Michel Rétif) speaks with all day. It's the only time Ligonnès' phone is connected, right within that half-hour window (the duration of the conversation, editor's note)", explains Romain Puertolas.

Despite these consistent elements, the former police captain does not make Michel Rétif, who died in 2020, an “accomplice” of the murderer.

Rejecting any theory of a hypothetical protection of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, he nevertheless regrets that the trail of the close friend was not explored further because there was perhaps an "explanation" involved.