Aix en Provence April 6, 2011 - Illustration of the Assize Court of Bouches-du-Rhône.

-

P.MAGNIEN / 20 MINUTES

  • Michel Lambin, hired killer suspected of a dozen assassinations in the 80s, appears on appeal from Monday before the assizes of Bouches-du-Rhône.

  • He will be tried for having executed with two bullets in the head a municipal agent of Antibes in 2002.

  • The alleged sponsor will also be in the box of the accused.

His former partner spoke of him in unflattering terms, portraying a serial killer who liked to eat his victims "with garlic and parsley".

Today in his seventies Michel Lambin, nicknamed "the shepherd of Caussols", appeared again this week before the assizes.

That of Bouches-du-Rhône.

His trial was to open Monday in Aix-en-Provence.

This suspected hitman, suspected of a dozen assassinations in the 1980s, will this time have to answer for the murder of a school guard in 2002 in Antibes for which he was sentenced four years ago to life imprisonment (before appealing this decision).

The victim, 33 years old at the time of the events, had been shot dead in his car by two bullets in the face.

The investigators' conviction is as follows: the crime was allegedly commissioned by a former Riviera robber, Émile Fornasari, jealous of seeing the municipal employee close to his wife.

He would thus have instructed Lambin to execute him.

Two co-defendants who deny the facts

Only the two men who will end up in the box of the accused, deny fiercely, even indicating that they do not know each other while the investigators took several years to confuse them.

It was not until 2009 and yet another twist that the police established a link.

That year, Lambin was tried in Nice for the assassination of a robber whose body had been found on his land.

During the hearing, the former companion of the shepherd then mentioned the assassination of the school guard in Antibes.

Ballistic analyzes had also shown that the two men had been killed by the same weapon, found at Lambin's home.

Defended by Eric Dupond-Moretti, the shepherd was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

This is the one and only assassination for which he has been convicted to date.

The trial, which is held at the Assizes of Bouches-du-Rhône, is to last fifteen days.

Justice

Nice: The worrying "double personality" of the "shepherd of Caussols", suspected hitman

Justice

Nice: Suspected of ten other murders, the "shepherd of Caussols" sentenced to life imprisonment for murder

  • Justice

  • Nice

  • Antibes

  • Marseilles

  • Fat

  • Serial killer

  • Aix en Provence

  • Assize court

  • Assassination