Inquiry into Toscan du Plantier murder to get under way in Paris

AN INQUIRY into the murder of Frenchwoman Sophie Toscan du Plantier is expected to get under way in Paris in the next month.

AN INQUIRY into the murder of Frenchwoman Sophie Toscan du Plantier is expected to get under way in Paris in the next month.

The French magistrates appointed to investigate the film producer’s murder are likely to start calling witnesses from Ireland in the coming weeks.

Judge Patrick Gachon and Judge Nathalie Dutartre arrived in Cork in June and spent three days carrying out inquiries regarding the December 1996 murder of Ms Toscan du Plantier (38).

The two judges visited her holiday home in Toormore near Schull and met gardaí who had worked on the investigation. They also compiled a list of civilian witnesses who made relevant statements to gardaí who they wish to invite to France to testify.

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Ms Toscan du Plantier’s battered body was discovered two days before Christmas in 1996, lying by the side of a winding lane that led to her isolated holiday home.

At a press conference in Cork last Christmas, Ms Toscan du Plantier’s uncle, Jean-Pierre Gazeau, made an appeal to her killer to confess.

Mr Gazeau, president of the Association for the Truth about the Murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, said he was confident her killer would be brought to justice.

He also said the law allowed for a person to be tried for her murder on French soil.

Ms Toscan du Plantier’s elderly parents, Georges and Marguerite Bouniol, have travelled to west Cork almost every December in the past 12 years to remember their daughter.

The area on the laneway where her body was discovered is marked by a stone cross inscribed with her name.

No one has been charged with her murder.

Ms Toscan du Plantier is survived by her parents and her son Pierre Louise. Her husband, film-maker Daniel Toscan du Plantier, died in 2003.

Irish prosecutors have effectively acknowledged that a criminal action is unlikely here. However, under Napoleonic law, a France-based inquiry can be ordered into the death under suspicious circumstances of French nationals overseas.