Willy Bardon is the prime suspect in the Elodie Kulik case.

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Philippe Huguen AFP

The request for the release of Willy Bardon, sentenced to 30 years in prison in the Elodie Kulik case, was accepted, pending his appeal trial, we learned from his lawyer on Friday. .

Last December;

Willy Bardon had been sentenced to 30 years of criminal imprisonment by the Assize Court of the Somme.

He had been found guilty of the kidnapping, sequestration followed by death and rape of Elodie Kulik.

The man had already twice requested his release, which he had been refused.

"It's a blow of the club"

For his lawyer Stéphane Daquo, this decision constitutes "the pure and simple application of the rules of law" according to which "once the investigation is completed and as soon as the person presents sufficient guarantees of representation, it must be returned. freely ".

“To be found guilty when he has been claiming his innocence for years has been very hard.

Now he is deeply determined to fight to the end so that what he cries from the beginning is confirmed, ”assured the lawyer.

For Elodie's father, Jacky Kulik, "it is a blow with the hammer, one more test in the terrible ordeal he has lived", lamented one of his lawyers, master Corinne Herrmann, who refused to comment on a court decision.

A decisive recording

Elodie Kulik, a 24-year-old bank employee, had been kidnapped, raped, strangled, then burned in January 2002 in Tertry, about twenty kilometers from Saint-Quentin (Aisne).

Before dying, the young woman had called for help, a chilling 26-second recording considered the centerpiece of the case.

If the participation of Grégory Wiart, who died in 2003 and whose DNA was found at the crime scene in 2012, is "undeniable".

The two men heard on the recording "are necessarily part of his kidnappers" and "the only relative" who is "recognized on the tape" by several witnesses is Willy Bardon had declared the lawyer general Anne-Laure Sandretto.

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