Maximum sentence for Nordahl Lelandais before the Grenoble Assize Court this Friday, February 18, 2022. Convicted of the kidnapping and murder of little Maëlys, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, accompanied by a security sentence 22 years old.
At the statement of the verdict, life imprisonment, accompanied by a security sentence of 22 years, Nordahl Lelandais barely sketched a nod, but he remained silent.
In silence also, the members of Maëlys’ family hugged each other, relieved to hear that he was found guilty of all the acts of which he was accused, and which he had already admitted: the kidnapping, the sequestration and the murder of Maelys at the end of August 2017, but also the sexual assaults against two little cousins of 4 and 6 years old the same summer.
After three weeks of hearings and seven hours of deliberation, the court therefore followed the requisitions of Advocate General Jacques Dallest, who the day before described the former dog handler as an absolute social danger. The defense of his lawyer, Me Jakubowicz, who believed that thirty years in prison is what he deserves and that one does not set a sentence on the basis of the pain of the victims, will not have allowed to spare him life.
No more his apologies renewed to the family of Maëlys the same morning, while he continued to deny any sexual assault on the eight-year-old girl at the time of the facts. Nordahl Lelandais therefore returned to prison on his 39th birthday.