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DNA-traced Frenchman jailed for Geneva murder

Malcolm Curtis
Malcolm Curtis - [email protected]
DNA-traced Frenchman jailed for Geneva murder
The courthouse in Saint Etienne. Photo: Radio France

A 35-year-old Frenchman was sentenced in his home country to 18 years in jail on Thursday for murdering a 67-year-old pensioner in Geneva almost two years ago.

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The pensioner was found with his throat slit and covered with a duvet in his fourth floor studio apartment at 11, rue du Viollet in the Swiss city.

The murderer fled to his home town in the Saint Etienne region of France but Swiss and French investigators tracked the man down and identified him as the killer through DNA evidence, the Tribune de Genève reported.

Because France does not extradite its citizens the man was tried by a regional court in Saint Etienne, a city located in eastern central France, 50 kilometres southwest of Lyon.


The convicted man was arrested at his home in Saint-Just-Saint-Rambert on February 28th 2011, less than two weeks after the murder.

“When we arrived, he was not surprised,” a police investigator told the court, according to the Tribune.

It is not clear what the motive for the brutal attack was.

The prosecutor raised the theory of an “aborted transaction” between the victim and his murderer, who had an extensive criminal record, the Tribune reported.

In killing the senior he “returned to his excesses,” the prosecutor is quoted as saying.

A defence lawyer for the accused said his client was traumatized by a former teacher who was jailed for 16 years for abusing minors, 20 MInutes newspaper reported online.

The newspaper said after consulting the internet to compare prison sentences in Switzerland and in France, the convicted man decided to stay in his home country. 

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