He was friends with Alain Delon, wrote a play, served as president of Servette FC and was convicted of attempted murder with contingent intent. The eventful life of Dominique Warluzel ends on March 8, 2022 in his hometown of Geneva.
Feared by opponents, loved by friends: The dazzling lawyer Dominique Warluzel is dead.
Maybe his wish will actually come true. “I want cherry wood for my coffin,” Dominique Warluzel told L’Illustré magazine in 2019. A few months earlier he had narrowly escaped death again – an acute respiratory arrest in the middle of the night. He only survived because four nurses looked after him constantly in his room at the Hotel Metropole in Geneva.
The last years of his life were torture. At times, Dominique Warluzel took up to 45 medications a day. A stroke hit him hard in 2013. Since then, the life of the once feared criminal lawyer and playboy has been severely affected. He was paralyzed on one side and suffered epileptic seizures. He rarely returned to the Bahamas, where he settled in 2011. At the end of May he wanted to celebrate his 65th birthday with friends in the Geneva area. On March 8, Warluzel died at 8:30 a.m., as reported by the French-speaking Swiss broadcaster RTS, citing reliable sources.
Domique Warluzel was a figure well beyond Geneva. This is what Alain Delon’s son Anthony said about Warluzel’s death on Tuesday. The French Divo Alain was not only Warluzel’s client but also a friend of his. Warluzel’s ringtone on the cell phone was the soundtrack of “The Sicilian Clan”, a gangster film starring Delon, as described in a portrait by “L’Illustré”.
Jiu Jitsu and TV
Warluzel had started a steep career at a young age. In 1983 he defended the kidnapping of French writer Frédéric Dard’s daughter. He later oversaw other sensational cases in western Switzerland. France awarded the Legion of Honor in 2005.
Client and friend: Alain Delon (centre) and Dominique Warluzel (right) before a trial in Geneva in 1991. The renowned lawyer Charles Poncet (left) was Warluzel’s mentor.
He was considered a brilliant lawyer – and a highly talented person. As a teenager he was Geneva table tennis champion, later he wore a black belt in Jiu Jitsu. In western Switzerland, Warluzel was not only known as a lawyer but also as a television presenter. For years he was the face of the “Profil de” program on RTS. In 2012, Warluzel’s play “Fratricide”, fratricide, was staged – in western Switzerland, but also in Paris.
napkin and gun
Warluzel also gained notoriety when he dedicated himself to the football club Servette FC from 1989 to 1990 and became its president – a club as sophisticated and controversial as he was himself. Because Warluzel was a jack of all trades, witty, loved by his friends, who called him “Warlu”. But he also had other sides. Some describe him as impatient, brusque, his character as difficult. Warluzel lost his father early and became a victim of his stepfather, who regularly abused him.
Its abyss became apparent in 2016. Severely marked by a stroke, Warluzel stayed in a nursing room in a luxury hotel in Geneva. After an argument with a nurse, Warluzel fired his revolver without hitting the woman.
A court sentenced him to 30 months in prison for attempted murder with contingent intent. She was eventually converted in favor of therapy. Warluzel asserted that it was actually about a suicide attempt. At that time he could no longer walk and had decided to end his life. He continued. A year later he even got married. Now his turbulent story is over.