The man suspected of having poisoned his ex-companion with mercury died this Sunday in his cell in the prison of Health.
The information, revealed by the Actu 17 site, was confirmed by the Paris prosecutor's office.
An investigation to find the causes of death was entrusted to the 3rd district of the Paris judicial police.
Hafid B., 50, was reportedly found in his solitary confinement cell with a major sore in his throat.
According to several sources, it would most likely be a suicide.
Contacted, his lawyer remains cautious about the exact circumstances of his client's death.
Locked up on Thursday, January 26 as part of pre-trial detention, Hafid B. had been placed in police custody two days earlier and then indicted for poisoning with premeditation, a crime punishable by life imprisonment.
Revealed by Le Parisien, this very singular affair was part of a context of separation not accepted, it seems, by the spouse.
He had himself informed the doctors
A few months after leaving her companion, father of her two children, Catherine D., 46, had presented the first worrying symptoms at the beginning of the fall of 2022: violent headaches coupled with intense fatigue.
Admitted to the Salpêtrière hospital (Paris XIII) on October 15, this entrepreneur specializing in the sale of “organic” stamped clothing had then been the subject of a battery of medical examinations.
From week to week, his state of health worsened, but no specialist called to his bedside was able to make an accurate diagnosis.
At the same time, the hospital administration received a series of messages from his ex-companion which suggested the existence of mercury poisoning.
A hypothesis that would have perplexed the medical profession before toxicological analyzes were carried out on the forties in early January.
These revealed precisely the presence of mercury in very high proportions, in accordance with the indications of his ex-companion.
After a report made by the hospital to the justice system, an investigation was opened by the Paris prosecutor's office and entrusted to the criminal brigade.
Catherine D. died a few days later, on January 19.
A dead cat in the fridge
Hafid B., a resident of the 18th arrondissement of the capital, was then arrested on January 24.
During the search of his apartment, the investigators discovered the presence of a dead cat in the refrigerator and two bottles of "methylmercury", a product extremely toxic to the nervous system.
Placed in police custody, the man would have tried to dispute the facts of poisoning.
His death this Sunday, the circumstances of which have yet to be clarified, could lead to the abrupt end of the judicial investigation.