Me Stéphane Goldenstein, alongside Christine and Geneviève Dupont de Ligonnès.
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F.Smadja / F. Demange / Sipa
Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès and her children Arthur, Anne, Benoît and Thomas were murdered between April 3 and 5, 2011 in their house in Nantes.
Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès has not been spotted since April 15, 2011.
Stéphane Goldenstein is the lawyer for the mother and sister of the fugitive.
Ten years ago, to the day, Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès and her four children were murdered in Nantes.
Untraceable despite police and media pressure, Xavier, the father of the family, remains the sole suspect of the five-fold murder.
A version to which Geneviève and Christine Dupont de Ligonnès, mother and sister of the fugitive, did not however adhere.
Today walled in silence, the two Versaillaises, moreover singled out for their religious practices, express themselves only through the voice of their lawyer, Me Stéphane Goldenstein.
Interview.
How are your clients doing today, ten years after the fact?
They are tired, they are tired of being slandered.
The latest news relayed by the media is that Geneviève and Christine are at the head of a sect, that they have embezzled money… They are extremely pious women but who do no harm to anyone.
We cast shame on them when they suffer terribly and only claim to live in anonymity and tranquility.
I understand that we are wondering about the reasons for the passage to the supposed act of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès and that we consider that religion can be a hypothesis, but from there to unearth old unfounded stories ... It adds to pain to their grief.
Can we live normally when we bear the name Dupont de Ligonnès?
No, we can't.
Let me give you an example: when Geneviève was hospitalized this summer in the Yvelines, after the publications of
Society
, the department head said to the medical staff: "You can invoke your conscience clause if you do not wish to treat Mme de Ligonnès" .
Something crazy.
Fortunately, no doctor did.
There are also consequences within the family.
One party criticized them for fueling the controversy.
This explains why they no longer want to express themselves at all anymore.
The Hodanger family [family of Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès] has always been totally silent.
Maybe she was smarter than us.
Christine and Geneviève Dupont de Ligonnès surprised, even shocked, by affirming from the beginning of the case that Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès was innocent and that the bodies found under the terrace were not those of his wife and his children.
Has their conviction changed ten years later?
No, it hasn't changed.
In fact, my clients analyzed all the elements of the case, those for the prosecution, the defense, the gray areas, the contradictions, the uncertainties, to conclude that, in the end, we did not know the truth.
There is a judicial truth, there is a media truth, but the original truth does not emerge from the acts of investigation.
From there they turned in the path of reason for a mother and for a sister who is to say: "After all, why would Xavier have lied when he announced in a letter that he had to leave? with his family on the other side of the world?
Since no proof of his guilt is brought to us, it is because he is not guilty.
".
What tangible elements still make them doubt?
We are not going to redo the whole file but the autopsies were carried out in haste, probably due to media pressure, and the material findings can be questioned: weight, height, face identification ... My clients were in Versailles, they did not see the bodies.
The judge gave a burial permit very quickly, which is also surprising for such a criminal case, the burial was also quick.
A family doctor friend was also denied access to the bodies on the grounds that the identification was formal.
It added further doubts for them in hindsight.
This theory is hard to believe anyway.
She was also formally dismissed by the courts ...
Of course.
It's also difficult for me, lawyer, to think that we could substitute bodies for the benefit of other bodies.
But that's their position.
I don't share it but I respect it.
We can also conceive it for victims to whom we do not bring irrefutable proof.
They are wary of appearances.
Let us not forget that they are victims.
They have lost a brother, a son, small children, a daughter-in-law… This truth which is specific to them, it is perhaps what is best to avoid suffering.
What do they expect from the survey today?
That we finally find out where Xavier is so that we can shed full light on what happened.
For them it is unthinkable that he could have committed suicide.
It's not part of his personality, they say.
They hope to see him and his family again.
It must also be said that this story of exfiltration in the United States seems so unlikely that the investigators never really dug this hypothesis.
I obviously understand that there are extremely serious and concordant clues weighing against Xavier.
But I regret that the investigation has gone in one direction from the start.
Prior to April 2011, there was no warning sign.
We interpreted things but, in reality, all of his friends, of his family, thought that it was not possible that he did that.
Our file on the Dupont de Ligonnès affair
If Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès is alive, is it possible that he has come into contact with his close family?
This is what happens in all criminal records when a person is on the run.
So it makes sense that we are watching the immediate family.
My clients have been bugged a number of times, and still need to be from time to time.
But I'm sure they haven't heard from Xavier at all.
I think he wanted to leave them with the image of a potentially innocent man.
How did they experience the Glasgow fiasco of October 11, 2019?
There is a stupid police officer who threw information out by wanting to be foamed and who discredited all the French police.
For my clients, it was a painful moment.
But they are really strong, they avoided listening to everything that was said.
Many reports have come out on the case, fictions too.
What do they think of it?
They don't watch.
Even I am bored, even if I understand that the mystery of this affair fascinates.
Do you think the case will be resolved in ten years?
I hope we have found him.
I believe it.
The more the press talks about it, the more possible it is.
Justice
Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès case: Ten years of investigation, twists and turns and false leads
Justice
Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès case: "A blank page on which everyone projects their fantasies", considers the former prosecutor of Nantes
Versailles
Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès
Crime
Nantes
Run
Assassination