He remained on the run for almost three weeks before surrendering to the police. Accused of having fatally strangled his partner Amanda Glain in January 2022 in Paris, former police officer Arnaud Bonnefoy will be tried at the assizes for “homicide by spouse”, the Paris prosecutor’s office informed AFP this Tuesday, October 15.
On January 28, 2022, Arnaud Bonnefoy, police officer at the Blanc-Mesnil police station (Seine-Saint-Denis), “had warned his department that he would not go to work”, recalled the prosecution, at the end of August, during his requisitions.
“His suicidal intentions were known, his superiors had asked the police officers of the 19th arrondissement to check at his home” where they “discovered the lifeless body of his partner”, continued the public prosecutor. The young woman, aged 28, was found strangled in the bathroom.
“Extreme dangerousness”
The police officer immediately fled. Around ten days later, on February 11 and 12, his vehicle, his service weapon and two magazines were found in Amiens in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant, after a call for witnesses.
After three weeks on the run, he called the gendarmerie on February 22 around 9:45 a.m. to report his presence at his father’s house in Montmeyan (Var) where he was arrested without resistance. A few days earlier, his father, in a statement to BFMTV, had asked him to “surrender without delay”.
During the investigation, Arnaud Bonnefoy “recognized the facts”, “expressed regrets” and pleaded “a homicide of passion” following a “transient attack of madness”, according to a source close to the case. The investigation, however, established “the extreme dangerousness” of this police officer, who everything showed that he “could act” in this sense well before the murder of Amanda Glain, added this source.
“Confront the author of this heinous act with the reality of his crime”
On September 10, the investigating judge issued “an order indicting Arnaud Bonnefoy, which was not appealed,” indicated the Paris prosecutor’s office. The former police officer, in pre-trial detention, had a history of domestic violence, according to a source close to the case. Spousal murder is a crime punishable by life imprisonment. When asked, his lawyers, Me Clémentine Perros and David Apelbaum, did not wish to comment.
In a press release sent to AFP by the lawyer Frédéric Delaméa who defends her, the victim’s family said they hope “with still keen pain, that this trial will finally make it possible to confront the author of this heinous act with the reality of his crime” and “bring them, if not peace, at least a form of recognition of their immense pain. »
According to official figures, which only concern marital feminicides, 833 femicides were committed between 2017 and 2023. No official data is yet available concerning femicides committed since the start of the year. On average, a feminicide occurs every three days in France.
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