Jacqueline Veyrac, on her arrival at the Nice judicial court on Friday January 8, 2021 -
AFP
Four years after her kidnapping in Nice, businesswoman Jacqueline Veyrac came to the Nice assizes to tell about her 48-hour ordeal.
The victim recounted his kidnapping: “I was coming back from the pharmacy, I had done some shopping, it was noon, it was very fast.
They took me in the Kangoo.
Immediately, they pushed and threw me, even a little hard ”.
Thirteen men are on trial for his kidnapping.
“I hardly ever go out at night and I avoid places that are too deserted.
My life has changed.
I still have apprehension ”.
More than four years after her kidnapping, Jacqueline Veyrac confided in the assizes this Friday.
Faced with the thirteen defendants tried for a month in Nice, this wealthy hotelier recounted her ordeal of October 24, 2016.
“I was coming back from the pharmacy, I had done some shopping, it was noon, it was very fast.
They took me in the Kangoo.
Immediately, they pushed and threw me, even a little hard, ”explained, in a calm voice, the very discreet owner of the Grand Hôtel de Cannes.
Gagged and tied up, the old lady will manage after two days to escape her captors by calling for help in the uncrowded street where the vehicle had been parked, managing to make signs without shouting through a window.
"They didn't speak [to me] very well"
In the box, the former Italian restaurateur Giuseppe Serena, accused number 1 motivated according to the accusation by the greed and the desire to take revenge after losing La Réserve, a restaurant that Jacqueline Veyrac had entrusted to him in lease-management , Look elsewhere.
He faces life imprisonment just like Philip Dutton, a Briton, the only one to recognize his participation in the kidnapping and a first kidnapping attempt in 2013. Like the Transalpine, also prosecuted for the facts of 2013, the suspects of having been of the duo's henchmen appearing with them deny any involvement.
Jacqueline Veyrac continues to describe the scene in 2016. The kidnappers, masked and gloved, take her bag, her phone and shout at her.
“They didn't speak very well [to me]: 'Shut up', 'shut up or I'll kill you',” she always recounts calmly.
She gets her hands tied in front and not behind her, but to go out and go to the bathroom, it's "no".
She refuses to drink or eat.
On several occasions, she shouts, tries to alert walkers, is rebuffed, becomes detached, is attached.
She says she hears the sound of a steeple, the sound of pine cones falling on the roof of the car.
"Baron Empain, it was worse, I'm lucky, I have a good aura," she manages to put into perspective, referring to the kidnapping in 1978 in Paris of a business manager kidnapped for more than two months and from whom his captors had notably cut a phalanx.
His son Gérard appears more shaken.
"It was treated like a piece of furniture", he testifies.
"I'm sorry", loose the main accused
His testimony is coming to an end.
Giuseppe Serena then asks for the floor, addressing the victim directly.
“I thought about you during those four years in prison, thinking that my mother could have been you, I'm sorry.
Please forgive me and all those people who might have hurt you.
I apologize and kiss you, thank you Aunt Jacqueline, that's what I called you ”.
Surprise in the courtroom.
Advocate General Annie Brunet-Fuster gets up and asks her if it's a confession.
"The culprit is not here," retorts the Italian.
I've talked too much, it's always been my fault, I don't admit my guilt.
Again, without naming him, it is his old Italian friend Enrico Fontanella, 67, aware of his setbacks at La Réserve, whom he blames for everything.
The latter is absent at the trial.
His case was severed for health reasons.
Justice
"I have nothing to do with this masquerade", proclaims the alleged sponsor of the kidnapping of Jacqueline Veyrac
Justice
Sequestered 48 hours in a van in 2016, Jacqueline Veyrac "still does not understand such hatred"
Assize Court
Trial
Abduction
Removal
Justice
Nice