On the run for twenty years, sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in 2001, Thierry Ascione has finally faced justice since Tuesday, October 1. The man appears before the Paris Assize Court for complicity in the assassination of a French couple, in Guatemala, in 1991.
Twenty years on the run from justice. Thierry Ascione, on the run for two decades, is on trial starting this Tuesday by the Paris Assize Court.
The man, now aged 65, is suspected of having ordered the double assassination of a French couple in the early 1990s.
The facts date back to December 28, 1991. The two mutilated and partially burned bodies of Bernard Béréaud and Marie-Antoinette Perriad, a couple of French restaurateurs, were discovered in two different places, in Guatemala City.
Suspicion quickly fell on Bernard Béréaud’s nephew, Jean-Philippe Bernard, and a friend, Philippe Biret. According to the latter’s confession, Thierry Ascione participated in the kidnapping of the couple with the aim of taking their money.
found in Indonesia
But how did he escape justice? Arrested for the first time for the same affair in 1995, after landing in Paris on a flight from Thailand, Thierry Ascione was released while awaiting his trial: he took the opportunity to disappear again. Sentenced in absentia in 2001 to life imprisonment, the man had not really hidden himself during these two decades of debacle.
Indeed, the former Marseille robber with a long criminal record crossed the Asian continent, going from television sets to jet-set parties. It was only on October 4, 2021, three years ago, that justice finally got its hands on him: after a storm and a shipwreck, the suspect’s sailboat was rescued off the coast of Indonesia.
A two-year procedural battle then took place to obtain his return to Paris, via the Netherlands. The man will finally be handed over to the French authorities in October 2023, on the basis of a European arrest warrant.
ten days of trial
Now imprisoned in France, Thierry Ascione admits to having defrauded the restaurateurs, but denies his participation in their assassination.
His lawyers intend to submit a request for expatriation and plead for the statute of limitations. Half a dozen people joined as civil parties, including the children of the late couple.
They hope the trial will “find out what really happened.” “We are in search of truth,” they confided.
After a wait of thirty-two years, the trial is expected to last around ten days and end on Friday October 11. Thierry Ascione faces life imprisonment.
