“Disgust and anger”: the trial at the assizes of Nordahl Lelandais addressed Friday the aspect of the sexual assaults of two little cousins of the accused with the testimony of the parents of one of the victims. “Why did he do that? Has he ever done that on other children? (…) Since when has he had this attraction?” Asks the mother of one of them at the bar. from her. “We were very naive,” she laments. “I no longer call him my cousin, I call him NL”, adds his spouse, evoking a “betrayal”.
Last day of this first week in Grenoble at the Nordahl trial #Lelandais today he will have to explain himself about the sexual assaults he committed on his little cousins of 4 and 6 years old in the summer of 2017. @Europe1#Maelyspic.twitter.com/Gw26pLjrqh
— Gwladys Laffitte (@Gwwla) February 4, 2022
Touching dating back to July and August 2017
The child, at the time aged 4, was the goddaughter of Nordahl Lelandais and “only had eyes for him”, says the mother. The couple themselves considered themselves “very close” to the 38-year-old former soldier, currently on trial in Grenoble for the murder of little Maëlys, who disappeared during a wedding in August 2017 in Pont-de-Beauvoisin (Isère ). In this part of the file, he is accused of having caressed the sex of his goddaughter while she was sleeping, alone in a room. Then to have reproduced these same gestures, in the same circumstances a few weeks later on another six-year-old cousin.
These touches date back to July and August 2017, the summer of Maëlys’ disappearance and were discovered when investigators got their hands on two videos that he would have shot himself with a telephone. The couple, residing in the south of France, recounts at the bar the shock he undergoes when he recognizes on one of them “the Snow Queen sheets” of their daughter and understands that she is the one of the victims. The parents will then become “experts in lies to protect” their child.
The godfather was declared “went abroad on a whim and without leaving an address”. The little girl cries a lot and asks to see him one last time. “I told her that it was not possible, that she would not see him again,” says her mother, crying. “She will have a new godfather, a new baptism”. Now eight, the child was only told “three weeks ago” to prevent her from hearing about the trial through the back door.
“The Man of Pretexts”
The question of the accused’s possible tendencies towards pedophilia is at the heart of the trial of the former dog handler. “These sexual assaults were committed, even if Nordahl Lelandais is presumed innocent, for one of them, six weeks before the facts concerning Maëlys, the other a week exactly before the facts concerning Maëlys”, had previously noted the lawyer for the parents of the two second cousins, Me Caroline Rémond.
Many gray areas still surround the death of the girl, whom the accused admitted to having “unintentionally” killed by striking her very violently in the face, and whose body he had then concealed in the mountain. Confronted Friday morning with one of his former companions, Nordahl Lelandais had affirmed that “the little one would still be there” if the latter had replied to the message he sent her the night of the events because he would then have left the wedding.
These remarks are “properly unbearable”, commented the lawyer of the father of Maëlys, Me Laurent Boguet. Maëlys’ mother’s lawyer, Me Fabien Rajon, also deemed “indecent to make this unfortunate ex-companion feel guilty”. “Nordahl Lelandais is the man of pretexts, false excuses, the man of lies,” he accused.
Already sentenced in Chambéry in May 2021 to 20 years in prison for the murder of young soldier Arthur Noyer, he did not appeal. The verdict is expected around February 18. Nordahl Lelandais faces life imprisonment.