The Paris prosecutor's office has refused the request of the nephew of Philippe de Dieuleveult to reopen the investigation into the death of this star animator disappeared during an expedition on the Zaire River with six other people in August 1985, AFP learned this Friday from a source close to the case. Alexis de Dieuleveult had transmitted at the beginning of February to the judicial court of Paris this request concerning the investigation opened in 1996 and closed on a dismissal in October 2004, for insufficient charges.
Philippe's brother and Alexis' father, Jean, had filed a complaint in February 1995 for intentional homicide, convinced that the host of the television show "La Chasse au Trésor" and his six companions had been victims of a "blunder" in 1985 during an expedition. He then accused the France of having covered up the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, then president of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Family outrage
The family's thesis, which had revealed that Philippe de Dieuleveult had belonged to the foreign intelligence service (DGSE), contradicts the version given to him, that of an accidental disappearance by drowning in the rapids of Inga, in the far west of the DRC.
Alexis de Dieuleveult claimed to have "immersed himself in this affair, to have found testimonies and "various documents and archives", including diplomatic telegrams from the ambassador of France at the time in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), which would evoke "the hypothesis of military blunder", "mercenaries" and "armed men".
The children of the animator had expressed to AFP their "indignation" after this request of the nephew to which they were "opposed (...) for personal reasons". "We take note of the decision of the prosecutor's office not to reopen the investigation into the disappearance of our father," they told AFP on Friday,adding: "We imagine that the prosecutor's office must have considered that there were not enough concrete elements."