PARIS | The teenage waitress disappeared one night after her shift. After a police hunt that gripped France, her severed limbs and head were found in an abandoned quarry.
The suspect, 31 and recently out of prison, already had 15 convictions on his record. But did President Nicolas Sarkozy go too far by branding him a “monster?” Is the suspect “presumed guilty,” as Mr. Sarkozy said? And did judges and police deserve blame for failing to prevent the crime?
The French president’s incautious comments about the suspect, and his complaints of incompetence in the legal system, have sparked a revolt among judges, prosecutors and lawyers. Protesting magistrates have shut down almost all the country’s courthouses this week, with courts hearing only urgent cases.
Judges wearing their traditional long black robes demonstrated Thursday in cities throughout France, with the main march in the western city of Nantes, near the crime scene.
Mr. Sarkozy has been in a long standoff with the country’s magistrates, who have often accused him of meddling in the judicial system and planning reforms that threaten their independence. This time, the judges are backed by several unions of police - who are traditionally supportive of conservative Mr. Sarkozy, a former interior minister.
Officials have filed preliminary charges against suspect Tony Meilhon for the “kidnapping followed by death” of Laetitia Perrais, an 18-year-old waitress who disappeared Jan. 19 after her restaurant shift in Pornic, in western France. Investigators are still probing the case, and no homicide charges have been filed.
Critics say Mr. Sarkozy took advantage of the grisly case to burnish his tough-on-crime image ahead of 2012 presidential elections, in which he is widely expected to seek a second term.
“It’s an old habit of his, using people’s legitimate feelings of outrage … for ends that are clearly electoral and demagogical,” Nicolas Leger, national secretary of the USM magistrates union, told the Associated Press.
Mr. Meilhon has declined the services of a lawyer. In questioning soon after his arrest, he said Ms. Perrais died in a road accident, prosecutors said.
Mr. Meilhon, who has been convicted for 15 crimes ranging from theft to rape and has spent a decade behind bars, was released from prison in February 2010. His name appears on a list of sex offenders and people with convictions for violent crimes, according to the Justice Ministry.
He was required to register his address with police. But Mr. Meilhon was never assigned to a probation office, which the Justice Ministry called a case of “disfunction.”
“When you let someone out of prison such as this individual who is presumed guilty, without ensuring that he will be seen by a probation officer, that is a mistake,” Mr. Sarkozy said Feb. 3. “The people who covered up or let this mistake happen will be sanctioned.”
Critics complained that Mr. Sarkozy had convicted Mr. Meilhon without a trial. Michel-Antoine Thiers of police union SNOP said simply: “His comments shocked us.”
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