French Court to Rule on Retrial for Omar Raddad in Decades-Old Murder Case

Omar Raddad was convicted in 1994 to 18 years in prison for the 1991 murder of his employer Ghislaine Marchal. Four years later, he was granted a partial pardon by President Jacques Chirac, then a conditional release. Pardoned but still not exonerated, the Moroccan gardener is trying to prove his innocence with the emergence of new evidence.

According to Le Monde, Omar Raddad’s defense filed a request for a retrial last June at the Paris courthouse, knowing that in France it is rare for the justice system to grant such a favor in a criminal case. But faced with the report established in 2019 by a private expert, which concluded that there were about thirty traces of a complete male DNA not belonging to the gardener and found in one of the famous inscriptions "Omar m’a tuer" (Omar killed me) made with the victim’s blood, the justice system changed its mind.

"These new elements represent a real hope," said Maître Noachovitch, Omar Raddad’s lawyer, who said she was "convinced that they are an upheaval of the case and clearly give rise to doubt about the guilt of Omar Raddad".

It is on the basis of these new elements that the commission composed of five judges examined the request and will have to make its decision on December 16. It can either reject the request, order additional information, or refer the case to the Court of Review for the organization of a new trial.

The Omar Raddad case, even thirty years later, remains one of the most famous and controversial criminal cases in France.