The Omar Raddad affair, a French story

It’s a criminal case worthy of an Agatha Christie novel. For three decades, it has aroused both fascination and unease in French public opinion. June 23, 1991: Ghislaine Marchal, 65, the rich widow of an automotive supplier, is found bathed in her blood in the cellar of her property in Mougins, in the south of France.

On the spot, the investigators discovered two inscriptions written on two doors with the blood of the victim: “Omar killed me” (sic) and “Omar me was”. Sufficient proof for the prosecution, which quickly accuses Omar Raddad, 27, the gardener of Ghislaine Marchal, a Moroccan immigrant with a clean criminal record, described as a good father but also a fan of casinos and slot machines.

These two inscriptions in letters of blood, which have become the most famous in French criminal history, have been at the heart of the twists and turns of the affair for 30 years. The latest: a request for review of the trial which will be filed on Thursday, June 24, by the defense of the former gardener, who now lives in Toulon.

This request is based on the analyzes of an expert, made in 2019 but unveiled on Monday by the newspaper Le Monde. This report concludes with the presence of about thirty traces of a complete male DNA not belonging to the gardener and found in one of the inscriptions. What to accredit the thesis of a macabre staging.

Ideal culprit ?

For several decades, the Raddad affair has continued to appear regularly in the news with its share of second opinions and requests for trial review.

“For 30 years, he has been waiting for his review. His life, that’s it. He’s depressed it’s true, but today, he regained hope,” explains his lawyer, Sylvie Noachovitch, on RTL.

Indeed, in the eyes of French justice, Omar Raddad, who has always proclaimed his innocence, remains guilty of the assassination of Ghislaine Marchal even if he benefited from a partial pardon in 1996, granted by President Jacques Chirac, under pressure from the king of Morocco, Hassan II.

In France, many personalities, such as academician Jean-Marie Rouart, have denounced a miscarriage of justice for years, while several investigative books have shed light on the dysfunctions of an investigation focused on the gardener.

Defenders of Omar Raddad particularly point to the weakness of the motive invoked by the defense: a dispute that would have gone wrong between the boss and her employee around a modest sum of money. Finally, material elements continue to raise questions. Starting with these inscriptions in letters of blood which helped forge the conviction of investigators.

“How an elderly woman, stunned, stabbed with 16 stab wounds, dragged herself across the room to write ‘Omar killed me’ and then ‘Omar killed me. I’ I tried to do it in my cell thousands of times, in the dark, it’s impossible! “, assured Omar Haddad in 2010, in an interview with the JDD.

“The mistake of being North African”

Very quickly, the case of Omar Raddad took on a social and political dimension. The case telescopes two opposing worlds. On the one hand, a Moroccan immigrant from a modest background speaking French with difficulty, on the other, a wealthy family from the Côte d’Azur.

On February 2, 1994, at the end of the verdict which condemns Omar Raddad to 18 years of criminal imprisonment, his lawyer, Jacques Vergès, caused an outcry by comparing his client’s case to the Dreyfus affair. “A hundred years ago, we condemned an officer who was wrong to be Jewish, today we condemn a gardener because he is wrong to be North African”, declared the criminal known for his shattering media outlets .

At the time, some saw in the conviction of the gardener the symbol of discrimination and injustices suffered by immigrants in France. During the trial, certain words of the president, Armand Djian, surprise by their aggressiveness. When the wife of Omar Raddad affirms that her husband was incapable of hurting a fly, the magistrate retorts: “Yes, but that does not prevent him from knowing how to slaughter a sheep”, recalls the lawyer Najwa El Haïté, interviewed by France 24.

“This sentence is terrible. He targets Muslims here by passing them off as potential murderers”, explains this activist who, through her association Dynamic Maroc, has been mobilizing for several years to obtain a review trial for the former gardener whose family life was destroyed by this ordeal. “At the time, some French people of Muslim faith felt concerned and identified with Omar Raddad. This affair was like a mirror of the discrimination suffered by some.”

Today, Najwa El Haïté firmly believes in the prospect of a new trial. “There are new elements which should allow a referral to the Court of Revision,” she said.

Other traces of DNA not corresponding to those of the gardener had already been found at the scene of the crime, but the Court of Revision had refused, in 2002, to reopen the wounds of the Omar Raddad case. Since then, a law has relaxed, in 2014, the conditions for reviewing a criminal trial and has allowed new investigations in recent years.

However, revisions of criminal convictions remain rare in France in criminal cases: since 1945, only ten defendants have benefited during their lifetime from a review and acquittal after a new trial.