Willy Bardon will be able to await his free appeal trial.
Sentenced on December 6, 2019 to thirty years in the Élodie Kulik case, the man, who has always shouted his innocence, immediately appealed against the verdict of the Somme Assize Court.
His denials, and the two-week hearing that highlighted the flaws in the investigation, concluded without any material evidence, were not enough to convince the jurors.
Several witnesses had indeed identified her voice in the background on the recording of the desperate call to the firefighters of the young banker, a few minutes before her death, one night in January 2002 ...
Blamed for his links with Grégory Wiart - identified ten years later by his DNA, but dead in the meantime - Willy Bardon had been convicted of rape, kidnapping and forcible confinement followed by death, but acquitted of the murder.
When the verdict was pronounced - he appeared free - he had attempted to commit suicide by absorbing a powerful pesticide which he had prepared and concealed.
Hospitalized for a few days, he was then imprisoned, but the justice system refused to release him.
Last July, his lawyers made a new request to the investigating chamber, which was accepted today.
Willy Bardon should be released from the Amiens (Somme) remand center this Friday.
"There is no sub-presumption of innocence"
"It is a courageous decision, because it is a media affair, but it is only the expression of the right: there is no longer any criterion to keep Willy Bardon in detention", reacted Mes Gabriel Duménil and Marc Bailly, two of his lawyers.
Recalling that before the trial last December, he had always strictly followed his judicial review.
"There is no sub-presumption of innocence, he was presumed innocent before the trial, he still is," they add.
This will allow us to defend him effectively, with the support of his relatives.
"
The appeal hearing, relocated at the request of the defense due to the enormous emotion aroused by the case in the region, was scheduled in Douai (North).
A choice that the lawyers of Willy Bardon dispute, because of the proximity of the places.
