The appeal trial of Cécile Bourgeon and Berkane Makhlouf will be held until December 16 before the Assises du Rhône.
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C. Girardon / 20 Minutes
Since Tuesday, Cécile Bourgeon and Berkane Makhlouf are on appeal before the Assises du Rhône for the disappearance of Fiona, who died in May 2013.
The investigators came to testify on the second day of the hearing.
They are "deeply convinced" that the child, whose body has never been found, was not buried at the location indicated by the accused.
They also question the date of death.
At the assize court of the Rhône, in Lyon
They have come to the stand to deliver their deep convictions despite the lack of evidence.
On Wednesday, the police, responsible for investigating the death of little Fiona in May 2013, meticulously exposed the results of their investigations to the jurors of the Rhône Assize Court.
In the box of the accused, Cécile Bourgeon, the mother of the child, and her former companion Berkane Makhlouf do not flinch, as strangers to the debates.
François Bernard, former regional director of PJ de Clermont-Ferrand, advances straight in front of the jurors.
The 61-year-old has had "certainties" for a long time.
Notably that Fiona was beaten before her death.
"She bore the mark of blows in the face that we had tried to hide with a blindfold," he says.
The images, captured by the cameras of a shopping center, confirmed the testimony of a shopkeeper.
"Everything suggests that Fiona was never buried around the lake"
The policeman is also deeply convinced that Fiona was not buried in the place indicated by the two accused.
And he explained it at length.
“The means to search for it, we had them.
The perimeter, limited to 10 square km, has been extended.
We swept an area of 300 square kilometers, ”he explains.
Dog teams have tirelessly searched the Aydat park.
The places have been cleared of brush.
The military and municipal employees came to help investigators.
A body was even discovered.
That of a woman who has been missing for years.
But not Fiona.
“We have not found anything, laments François Bernard.
And if we haven't found it, it's because it's not there.
Silence in the courtroom.
Clément Maurice, police officer responsible for supervising the investigations, presents himself in turn to share the same doubts and the same intuitions.
“Cécile Bourgeon and Berkane Makhlouf said they left hastily on Sunday morning to bury the body.
But they left without a shovel.
They must have stolen one there.
They would have locked Fiona naked in a sports bag, ”he points out, dubiously.
And to add: “They dug a hole of 50 centimeters in a hard ground.
Believe me, it's physical.
And they would have done it in just a quarter of an hour?
It is not very compatible ”.
For him, “everything suggests that Fiona was never buried around the lake”.
Fiona thrown in a garbage bag among the trash?
“Going to Aydat to bury someone illegally is the last thing you can think of, if you have little sense, François Bernard will support a few minutes earlier.
It is a very popular tourist spot.
This is not the place to go to be discreet.
Especially not in the middle of the day.
Especially not on a Sunday.
"The former director of the PJ drives the point home a second time:" The corner is traversed by many hunters and walkers.
In seven years, no one has ever found a bone.
It seems amazing to me.
"
If Clément Maurice does not advance any hypothesis on the place where the body of Fiona was hidden, his colleague develops a theory which makes the defense jump.
“An intimate conviction”, as he repeats.
The child was reportedly buried in a garbage bag and thrown among the garbage.
“It's a radical way to make a body disappear.
This is why we have not found it, ”he said.
The investigator is based on the testimony, not cross-checked, of a neighbor of the couple who says he saw Makhlouf with a 100-liter bag in his arms, on the night of Thursday to Friday, at 2 am precisely.
"He went to throw it in the trash cans of the residence opposite", reveals the police officer.
Problem: the testimony arrived late in the investigation.
The gendarmes did not search the trash cans on Sunday, the day when Fiona's disappearance was reported by her mother.
And they were picked up the next day to be taken to the Puy-Long recycling center.
The research, carried out on the spot by sniffer dogs, was also unsuccessful.
What do not fail to underline the defense lawyers, outraged by this theory.
Doubts about the date of death
“There was a hectare and three meters high of rubbish.
So a smaller surface than in Aydat.
If there had been a body, it would have been found, assures Jean-Félix Luciani, Berkane Makhlouf's counsel.
I'm sorry, this hypothesis is not plausible ”.
Renaud Portejoie, lawyer for Cécile Bourgeon, attacked in turn: “No, the garbage was not lifted on Monday morning.
We must remove this fantasy from the trash ”.
And thus remove the doubt that could interfere in the minds of the jurors.
This is not the only disturbing element, reported by the police, which could undermine the version delivered by the accused.
The date of Fiona's death (Sunday, May 12, 2013) seems very uncertain to them.
“There is no objective evidence that she was alive on Saturday.
Concerning Friday, it is not much better, answers François Bernard, reporting two episodes for the less intriguing.
On Friday, the couple went to see Berkane Makhlouf's attending physician in order to obtain a medical certificate that could justify that Fiona was absent from school for 21 days.
Without the girl being present at the consultation.
"It should be noted that they had never taken this precaution when the child missed 48 half-days of school during the same year", underlines for his part, Clément Maurice.
Second disturbing element: the duo carried out, on Saturday afternoon, Internet research on a false abduction of children in Marseille.
Cécile Bourgeon and her former companion, remember, first made investigators believe that Fiona had been kidnapped in a park on Sunday afternoon, before being unmasked.
The debates must continue until December 16 before the Assize Court of the Rhône.
The two accused face thirty years of criminal imprisonment.
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