Nicolas Zepeda, a Chilean suspected of having killed his ex-Japanese girlfriend in Besançon in 2016, will remain under judicial supervision pending his extradition to France, confirmed on appeal the Supreme Court of Chile on Tuesday. "The Supreme Court maintains preventive measures of judicial control and ban on leaving the territory for Nicolas Zepeda pending his extradition to France," said on his Twitter account the highest court in the country.
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The prosecution had filed an appeal after the Supreme Court's decision on May 27 not to place the 29-year-old suspect in pre-trial detention, but to maintain the preventive measures to which he was subjected as such. On May 18, the Supreme Court of Chile definitively authorized Nicolas Zepeda's extradition to France. Since this decision, the French authorities normally have 60 days to pick up Nicolas Zepeda in Chile. But faced with the traffic restrictions imposed by the pandemic (suspension of international flights, closing of borders) no precise date could be put forward. "Arrangements are continuing for the French authorities to come and collect him and transfer him to France where he must finally be tried", Antonio Segovia, director of international cooperation and extraditions of the Chilean prosecution, and representative of the French state in the proceedings, said in a statement.
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Nicolas Zepeda is suspected of the assassination of his ex-girlfriend Narumi Kurosaki, a 21-year-old Japanese student who lived on the Besançon university campus. She was last seen on December 4, 2016 on campus and her body was never found. According to the investigation, shortly before Narumi's disappearance, the two young people had distanced themselves and the Japanese student had started a new relationship, arousing jealousy of the Chilean. The latter had left Chile in early December 2016 to see the young woman in Besançon. On the evening of December 4, the day before his disappearance, they had returned to Narumi's accommodation together and, during the night, several students had heard "howls of terror, screams" . Nicolas Zepeda, son of a wealthy Chilean family, had met the student in Japan in 2014. He had fallen madly in love with her and introduced her to his family in Chile.