Confronted during his trial with videos of sexual assaults of little cousins, which he admitted to having filmed, Nordahl Lelandais admitted Monday for the first time to having had “pedophile” inclinations, while denying having felt such impulses for young Maëlys.
On the sixth day of his trial before the assizes of Isère for the murder of the eight-year-old girl in 2017, the 38-year-old former soldier was confronted with the testimonies of the parents of one of the assaulted little cousins and with very raw videos of these acts, which shocked the assistance during their projection. “What is it? What is the generic term for that?” Asked him during the hearing Me Yves Crespin, the lawyer for two child welfare associations. – “Pedophilia”. – “Do you admit that you had pedophile inclinations?” – “Yes”.
Two assaults that occurred shortly before the disappearance of Maëlys
The girls, aged 4 and 6 at the time, were assaulted in the summer of 2017, shortly before Maëlys disappeared at the end of August of the same year. These acts had been discovered during the investigation into the disappearance of Maëlys when the investigators had got hold of videos of the touching filmed by telephone.
The accused thus recognizes for the first time very clearly to have had a pedophile inclination, and his lawyer, Alain Jakubowicz, noted for his part that the word had been “released”. “It’s an important word, the word pedophilia,” he added.
“Words had to be placed on actions. I think this is the first time that he has admitted this pedophile inclination. (…) It was important for him to admit it. Maybe that will allow him to go a little further in the knowledge that we have of the facts”, noted for his part Me Crespin.
Lelandais denies having sexually assaulted Maëlys
On the other hand, the accused repeated on Monday that he had not sexually assaulted Maëlys. “Me at that time it was not at all what came to mind, not at all, at all”. If he admitted at the start of the trial to have killed “unintentionally” little Maëlys and apologized to her family, he fiercely denies any sexual abuse of the girl since the start of the investigation.
Monday began with the testimony of the parents of one of the second cousins, victims of sexual assault during the summer of 2017. The father and mother both spoke of the five-day vacation in Savoie during from which they and their three daughters stayed with the parents of Nordahl Lelandais in Domessin to visit the region.
At the time, the accused appeared to them as “someone very good” and according to them “there was nothing that could have aroused our suspicions”. But Nordahl Lelandais is accused of having caressed the sex of their eldest, aged six at the time, while she slept in one of the bedrooms of the house, as well as of similar touching of her 4-year-old goddaughter. years during a stay with other cousins in the Gard six weeks earlier.
“I would have liked so much to protect her, that it never happens to her. We were there two meters away”, testified at the bar the mother of the little cousin attacked in Domessin. These images “will haunt me”, she adds, crying. The defendant will stubbornly keep his head down as the court plays the two sleeping child molestation videos, saying he doesn’t want to see the “horrible” footage.
The parents of the girls evoke “disgust” and their feeling of “betrayal”
On Friday, the parents of the other girl victim of sexual assault also spoke of their “disgust” and their feeling of “betrayal” when they discovered that the former dog handler, to whom they were “very close”, abused their trust.
The afternoon is devoted to the hearing of Maëlys’ family, in particular her parents and her older sister. His father, Joachim De Araujo, “intends to tell (the accused) all the harm he has done,” he said on RTL on Monday. “I am convinced that he sexually abused Maëlys,” he added, while the rape charges were dismissed during the investigation for lack of evidence.
Already sentenced in Chambéry in May 2021 to 20 years in prison for the murder of young soldier Arthur Noyer, the accused did not appeal. He faces life imprisonment for the murder of Maëlys. The verdict is expected around February 18.