Disappeared during the night of February 1 to 2, 2008, it was not until February 28 that Katoucha Niane was found dead. Despite the official thesis of drowning, his family still demands justice…
Provoked or accidental drowning? This is the question that members of the family of Katoucha Niane, a Guinean model who has worked for the biggest fashion houses in the world, always ask themselves. She has in particular worked for Lanvin, paraded for Thierry Mugler and then became the face of Yves Saint Laurent and thus finds herself propelled to the forefront of the international modeling scene. Born in October 1960 in Conakry, Guinea, Katoucha died in the Seine in Paris in February 2008 when she was 47 years old.
A tragic and accidental death?
In fact and according to various police reports, Katoucha spent the evening of 1er October at the restaurant of the Hotel Costes in Paris. She was then taken home by a friend, on a barge called La Petite Vitesse moored at the foot of the Alexandre III bridge and in which she then lived with her companion, the architect Laurent-Victor Cotte. This friend who accompanies her is the last person to see her alivesince Katoucha went missing the next day, February 2, 2008. After long weeks of research, it was only a month later, on February 28, that his body is fished out of the water in Boulogne-Billancourtnot far from the Garigliano bridge.
Katoucha is recognized in particular thanks to the clothes, identical to the outfit in which she had disappeared. His body is then autopsied and the cause of death is identified as drowning by rapid submersion without traces of violence. Toxicological examinations will then reveal a high level of alcohol in his blood at the time of his death.
Circumstances that raise questions
If Katoucha’s death was talked about at the time, despite a quick conclusion by the police, it is because 14 years later, some questions have still not been answered. One of the disturbing elements is that, according to RTL, the body of Katoucha when it was recovered was not inflated and did not contain any trace of humus, a material resulting from the decomposition of organic matter which should have been present on its body. Katoucha’s father also pointed out that when he had to identify his daughter at the morgue, he noticed that his face was smooth and unscathedwhile a prolonged stay in the water should have had an effect on his skin.
Finally last element and not least: the victim’s purse. As Roland Dumas, the family lawyer hired in March 2008, said in an interview with the Jeune Afrique media: “Katoucha, on her way home, that is to say in the barge, stepped over a first boat for the first time, she put her bag in front of the door of the second boat, which was found intact. (.. .) What is very curious is that the keys, equipment etc. were intact in the bag. It rained that night, but everything was dry inside the bag. (…) If the bag had been there since the day before, how come it was in such a dry state as we found it?”. Did Katoucha die long after her disappearance? Did someone stage his death? So many questions that will never find an answer.
For the family lawyer, Katoucha would have fallen following “malice or outside intervention”. For investigators, however, it isan accidental death during which the model fell in the water and, not knowing how to swim and having consumed a lot of alcohol that evening, tragically drowned.