Complete unknowns…?
In Le Figaro’s latest, which I’ll translate in full in a wee bit, we can read the following, a very interesting tidbit indeed:
This 40 year-old engineer seemed well integrated in the French expat microcosm. Last May, he had played the role of a police inspector [dda: Mwahahahahahahaha] in an amateur theather play, Le noir te va si bien…, ie “Black suits you so well…” As for Véronique, she was a kindergarten assistant for 3rd year kids at the French school.
Something felt wrong. Very. Then I searched the archives of this blog. Hmmph. On August 12, I translated the following:
Today, Sorae village, where the couple resides, is abuzz with curiosity: I went through the directory of the French school, and I still couldn’t find who they were., declares a resident of this neighbourhood, dubbed “Little France”. This French couple apparently managed to live away from the French community that surrounded them.
So apparently, since the author/contributor of both articles are the same people [Anne-Charlotte De Langhe, with Aurore Skelton in Seoul], either they write copy as they take their morning crap, ie don’t look too closely, open wide and let go, or they’ve been bullshitted to and are pretending they never noticed. If the dudine in Seoul went to Pangbae-dong and interviewed people [at least one…] and she was told, Nope, the directory doesn’t list these people while not only they have two school-age kids, but the mother works at the French school, do you expect us to really believe that the name ‘Courjault’ is not listed there?
My take is that they circled the wagons and hoped the problem would go away… Fat chance!
Update: the full translation
Frozen babies: the Korean case file in limbo
Orléans DA’s office can’t do anything without a copy of the case file of the South Korean police, which has concentrated its investigation on Véronique Courjault.
The investigation stalls, while the mystery thickens: in Seoul and Tours the “frozen babies case” have people abuzz. More than a month after the investigation started in Korea, the elements that would help explain the gory discovery of two newborns in a freezer, at the house of French expats, are scarce. While Seoul investigators emphasize their suspicsions on Véronique Courjault, the French justice system is still waiting for more details.
Indeed, Orléans’ DA1 office hopes to receive soon a full copy of the South Korean case file. AMond this file, the results of the DNA tests, designing the French couple as the parents of the babies. The case file is being translated, said DA Sylvie Pantz, but this could take some time. The objective is to go as fast as possible, in order to avoid degradation of evidence. Defrozen for autopsy, the babies, which hold the key to this mystery, are being preserved in Seoul.
Meanwhile. the South Korean police’s demand of interrogating Véronique Courjault is becoming more and more vocal, as she is believed to be the mother of the babies, and thus suspected of infanticide. Chances thath she is not the mother are exactly nil, an investigator in Seoul recently declared, relying his opinion on the results of the test done at the National Institute of Scientific Investigations.
These results are contested by Véronique Courjault, 39. A first series of tests, based on samples taken from their Seoul lhome [hairs, ear swabs] had confirmed that the Courjaults were the parents of the dead babies. These results were confirmed in a second series of tests made on samples taken from the woman during a surgical procedure done on December 13, 2003.
A letter to French expats in Seoul
According to South Korean investigators, Véronique Courjault underwent hysterectomy [removal of the uterus] in a clinic somewhere near Seoul three years ago. This was required, according to the police, because the placenta inside her uterus was decomposing. Last week, the French press had reported about this emergency procedure, but Véronique Courjault had stated that it was following an infection whose origin was never determined. Seoul remains convinced that the suspect gave birth to the babies outside medical facilities.
The case started on July 23, when Jean-Louis Courjault, back in Seoul for an unscheduled business meeting, discovered the two babies in his freezer. He reported the discovery to the police, and was allowed to go back to France.
Hunkering down in Touraine, the Courjaults will not go back today to their Sorae village home, as was scheduled. In a letter sent to the French community in Seoul, Jean-Louis Courjault insists on their innocence, and asks to be remembered as an open person. [dda: Duh. Even if you hadn’t cryogenized babies, you wouldn’t be remembered at all 3 weeks after your departure. That’s the way it goes there… Of course, with this scandal, you might be remembered a little longer!].
This 40 year-old engineer seemed well integrated in the French expat microcosm. Last May, he had played the role of a police inspector [dda: Mwahahahahahahaha!] in an amateur theather play, Le noir te va si bien…, ie “Black suits you so well…” As for Véronique, she was a kindergarten assistant for 3rd year kids at the French school. Today, nothing can force her to go back to the job. Not even French law.
As soon as they receive the case file, French prosecutors will build their own case, with their own evidence and tests, Marc Morin, the Courjaults’ lawyer insisted. I will be satisfied with the evidence the day a French coroner does an autopsy of the babies in Korea, Orléans DA Sylvie Pantz stated. And when he tells me how the babies died.
1 For the convenience of our American readers, I am borrowing US terminology. Avocat Général == D.A. [District Attorney], Procureur == ADA [Assistant DA], etc… Note that since there’s no Federal government here, all French prosecutors are indeed the equivalent of the Feds. Orléans being a large city, they have a DA. Tours, the closest city to the Courjault’s abode, is not only smaller but also in the same region, and thus only has an ADA – and minions of course. So while the first interview involved the Tours ADA and coppers, note that now the DA herself has taken on the case. Pulling ranks and all that.
Same goes for the police, which usually refers in French to the national police, as City Hall’s cops in France are usually nothing more than dignified rent-a-cops in charge of parking tickets and opening and closing public gardens. Our UK friends can replace DA with procurator fiscal.