Eloïse Bertil 08h00, January 09, 2023
On December 18, 2017, Nordahl Lelandais, who was already the main suspect in the “Maëlys” case, was taken from prison to be placed in police custody.
He is now accused of the murder of Arthur Noyer, a corporal who has not given any news for more than eight months, seen for the last time after leaving a nightclub in Chambéry.
At that time, Alain Jakubowicz, lawyer for Nordahl Lelandais in the Maëlys case, saw his chances of having his client acquitted reduced to nothing.
In the “Le Coupable” podcast, the defense lawyer recounts this key moment.
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“What is this story?” cried Alain Jakubowicz, Nordahl Lelandais’ lawyer on December 18, 2017, since the case of the disappearance of little Maëlys broke out, when he is told that his client is placed in police custody in a second investigation, for another case.
In the podcast "Le Coupable", Me Jakubowicz and his collaborator Marine Régnier recount this moment of change: "At that moment, we say to ourselves 'shit'. We wonder if we will one day receive other calls of this type. (…) We are starting to doubt our client.”
Marine Regnier, who has been following the progress of the investigation into the disappearance of Maëlys on a daily basis for several months, leaves that day to see Nordahl Lelandais without delay.
As defense lawyers, Me Jakubowicz and his collaborator Marine Régnier must know what to expect... "Clients are never asked directly whether or not they committed the crime they are accused of. Instead of that, I ask 'what we can fear from the investigations'. We are not going to lie to each other, it's a roundabout way of asking the question…", she confides again at the microphone of journalist Noémie Schulz in the "Le Coupable" podcast, produced by Spotify and Europe 1 Studio.
"I remember that Nordahl Lelandais was not inclined to open up about anything. So we just explain to him his rights,
"This is the file we didn't want"
As in the investigation into the disappearance of Maëlys in Pont-de-Beauvoisin in Isère in August 2017, Nordahl Lelandais therefore denies any involvement in the "Arthur Noyer" affair, seen for the last time after coming out of a box of night in Chambery.
However, several elements of the file already incriminate him.
CCTV cameras spotted a black Audi at the places frequented by Arthur Noyer on the evening of his disappearance and in the same time slots.
Thanks to the investigation carried out in parallel on Maëlys, the police end up making the link between this vehicle and that of Nordahl Lelandais.
The analysis of the telephone also shows that their mobile phones have "bounded" in the same place, at the same time, suggesting that the two men moved together.
At last,
Read also: Behind the scenes of the "Maëlys" affair, the impressive work of the defense on the pleading
When he understands that the client he had chosen to defend in a first case is a suspect in a second case, Alain Jakubowicz confides: "I realize that everything is going to capilotade, and I am furious. Furious against him, furious with me. But I am the only one responsible, and I feel held hostage.”
At first, the lawyer therefore thinks of refusing to defend him on this second case, but his team "catch up with him by the hair". "Letting go" Nordahl Lelandais on this case would be letting go of his client altogether. she, underlines a not insignificant factor in this decision-making: the media response. "
How are we going to interpret that Me Jakubowicz can intervene in one case and not in the second?
Are we not going to draw conclusions from this refusal?
The room for maneuver to get out of it was non-existent”, she concludes in “Le Coupable”.
Nordahl Lelandais, serial killer
But, in the weeks that followed, with the creation of the "Ariane" cell to seek a link between Nordahl Lelandais and other unsolved cases of disappearance, the task of the defense lawyers became even more complicated: they were on all the fronts, they must be prepared to respond to possible new accusations.
The Lelandais affair then takes on another dimension and Alain Jakubowicz does not hide his annoyance: "the disappeared from all over the world, it was Nordahl Lelandais who murdered them, on the pretext that it happened within a radius of 200km from the place where he lived! We step on the head! We sell hope to all these people who are looking for a loved one [disappeared], and it's disgusting…", he insists.
Read also: The micro drop of blood that changed everything in the investigation into the disappearance of Maëlys
To discover the rest of Alain Jakubowicz's story behind the scenes of the "Maëlys" affair, listen to "Le Coupable", an Original podcast produced by Spotify and Europe 1 Studio of eight episodes, available free of charge and exclusively on Spotify.