A GROUP campaigning for justice for murdered Frenchwoman Sophie Toscan du Plantier has appealed to anyone who may have any information regarding her killing to contact either them or a French magistrate who ordered the exhumation of her remains for a new autopsy.
According to Jean-Antoine Bloc-Daudé, vice-president of the Association for the Truth About the Murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier (Assoph), the group is hoping that people in west Cork who made statements in the Garda investigation will contact them.
Mr Bloc-Daudé said Assoph was issuing "a call for witnesses, urging persons who detain direct or/and indirect piece of information about the circumstances of the murder or the person who caused it to get in touch" with them or with Judge Patrick Gachon.
The judge, who last month made an order allowing Ms Toscan du Plantier's body to be exhumed from the family plot at Combret in the Lozere region of France, can be contacted at Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris 4, Boulevard du Palais 75055 Paris RP, he said.
Meanwhile, Alain Spilliaert, a lawyer who worked on the case for Ms Toscan du Plantier's late husband, Daniel, in 1997 said yesterday he believed the Irish authorities should make samples taken at the postmortem in 1996 available to the French authorities.
"I know that the body of Sophie Toscan du Plantier has been exhumed and a new autopsy is being carried out here in France but I cannot understand why the original samples taken at the first postmortem cannot be sent to France for analysis," said Mr Spilliaert, now a member of Assoph.
Ms Toscan du Plantier's body was found outside her holiday home at Toormore near Schull in west Cork on the morning of December 23rd, 1996. Although gardaí twice arrested English journalist Ian Bailey for questioning about the murder, no one has ever been charged.
Yesterday Mr Bailey's solicitor, Frank Buttimer, said his client would be willing to meet the investigating magistrate, Judge Gachon if he was to come to Ireland. He was also willing to assist the family of the late Ms Toscan du Plantier.
"What Mr Bailey has said is that he's willing to provide any possible assistance that he could to the family of the late Madame du Plantier or her legal representatives," said Mr Buttimer.