Sébastien Lapaque is a journalist and writer. He is the author of
This world is so beautiful
(Editions Actes Sud, 2021).
"
Justice, this fugitive from the winning side
": it is the famous words of Simone Weil that one thinks of when reading
Omar, the fabrication of an injustice
published by Jean-Marie Rouart on the eve of a decisive hearing to obtain a review of the trial of the gardener of Ghislaine Marchal, sentenced to 18 years in prison for the murder of his boss in 1994. The winning side?
That of the party of anti-racism and human rights which ensured the police of ideological thought in the courtrooms and the gazettes at the end of the second seven-year term of François Mitterrand.
On January 24, 1994, when the trial of Omar Raddad opened before the Alpes-Maritimes Court of Appeal, some discovered with amazement that Me Henri Leclerc, the vice-president of the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme , was the lawyer that the family of Ghislaine Marchal had chosen to convict Omar Raddad, arrested in Toulon on Tuesday June 25, 1995, taken into custody at the Mougins gendarmerie, presented to the investigating judge Sylvaine Arfinengo the next day, charged and imprisoned on Thursday, June 27.
Me Henri Leclerc is a great conscience, and even the incarnation of a good conscience, recalls Jean-Marie Rouart in a crisp chapter of his book.
Against arbitrariness, against intolerance, against racism, against all forms of conservatism, against the enemies of freedom, against “
the economic powers which will always prefer the conclusion of a deal to the respect of a principle
” (sic) , this lawyer wants to be the defender of the little ones, the obscure, the without ranks.
What was he doing in a courtroom to overwhelm an illiterate gardener, who spoke only Berber, whom the gendarmes had managed to make a suspect in three days and two nights by vigorously cooking him?
From "the invention of a culprit" to "the fabrication of an injustice", it is a cruel and painful route that Jean-Marie Rouart has reconstructed.
Sebastien Lapaque
Almost three decades later, taking up the case in the footsteps of Jean-Marie Rouart, we understand that the conviction without proof and without confession of Omar Raddad was a symbol of the denials of the moral left.
"
If the family chose me as a lawyer, it was precisely because they did not want there to be any racist drift
", explained Me Henri Leclerc who was questioned about his rare pleading on the side of the party. civil.
"
Cover this breast that I cannot see, by such objects souls are wounded...
".
Because if there is one thing that has become clear to the writers who have looked into this affair which has given rise to thirteen books, it is that it was also, above all, a matter of racism.
In the support committee he formed to assert the innocence of the gardener of Ghislaine Marchal, Jean-Marie Rouart still managed to bring together Jean d'Ormesson, Erik Orsenna, Henri Troyat and Philippe Tesson.
"
It's the great fight of my life
", swears the academician who published
Omar, the invention of a culprit
with his friend Bernard de Fallois in 1994 and has never let himself be dismantled since then.
Read alsoOmard Raddad case: legal upheavals, media outbursts
From "
the invention of a culprit
" to "
the fabrication of an injustice
", it is a cruel and painful road that Jean-Marie Rouart has reconstructed - indifferent to those who made fun of him in this affair, but revolted by their sneers when they had Omar Radar for their object.
After seven years in prison, this man who is never heard from was released following a presidential pardon signed by Jacques Chirac, but there are still strong and advantageous minds who swear that "
the intimate conviction
of the jurors and magistrates of the Court of Assizes of the Alpes-Maritimes was the correct one.
“
Many people have questioned my involvement in this case,
observes Jean-Marie Rouart today, while new elements are examined by the Court of Revision in the case of the murder of Ghislaine Marchal.
I also find it hard to recognize myself in the man I was during this period, forced to speak publicly, to wage war with the Minister of Justice, to involve supporters of the cause in various conferences or demonstrations, and to defend this same cause at
Apostrophe
where Bernard Pivot had invited me.
I did not enjoy this role of tenor or tribune.
On the contrary, it thwarted my nature and my education which led me to discretion and restraint.
But I'
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