Lilian Dejean was shot dead on Sunday, September 8 by a man who is still on the run and actively sought. Speaking to France Bleu Isère, the family’s lawyer said he was “sorry” about the political exploitation of the tragedy.
Emotions remain high in Grenoble, where Lilian Dejean, a municipal agent, was shot dead on Sunday, September 8, while trying to prevent the suspect from fleeing after causing an accident by hitting another car.
While the tragedy has provoked a lot of reaction, the lawyer for the municipal employee’s family expressed his outrage on France Bleu Isère on Thursday, September 12, at the political exploitation that the affair has inspired.
“It saddens me (…) You have to reach a certain level of indignity to recover from human tragedies like these,” lashed out Romain Ruiz.
The case has indeed been much discussed in the political sphere, even going so far as to create tensions between the mayor of Grenoble Éric Piolle (Les Écologistes) and certain elected officials such as the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi or the deputy Ensemble pour la République Karl Olive. The mayor was notably criticized for not doing enough on the security front.
Suspect on the run
Conversely, the council stressed the “dignity” of the family, which “tries to stand firm”. “Today, this family is digesting (…) It is time for mourning, for pain. The legal issue will come later”, he added, while the suspect is still on the run and actively sought.
The alleged killer is 25 years old. An ID card in the suspect’s name was found in the rented Audi RS3 registered in Poland, which caused the accident. It allowed investigators to identify him as the rental company of the vehicle.
The suspect is known to the courts in particular for “theft, violence and drug trafficking”, and for having beaten up, with five fellow inmates, another prisoner at the Varces remand center in Isère, in June 2023.
Tried in August 2023 for this violence, he was sentenced to four months in prison with a ban on owning a weapon for five years. A week after his return to prison, he was involved in new violence for which he was due to be tried on October 3.
“A desire to understand”
Today, “it is not anger (which dominates the family, editor’s note), it is more a desire to understand”, affirmed Me Romain Ruiz. On Wednesday, September 10, the Grenoble public prosecutor’s office opened a judicial investigation into the murder of Lilian Dejean.
This will allow “the family to find out more, to constitute themselves as a civil party and therefore to have access to the file, and also to be able to intervene by means of requests made to an investigating judge”, explained the lawyer.
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