Sylvain Jouanneau in 2015, just before his sentence to 20 years in prison.
AFP
Twist in the case of little Mathis who has been missing since 2011: his father Sylvain Jouanneau, sentenced in 2015 to 20 years in prison for kidnapping and sequestration, was indicted for murder, in particular due to the discovery of the DNA of boy in his car.
“Mathis’s father was indicted for the murder of his son on April 19, 2024,” said a judicial Source, confirming information from France 3 Normandie.
Custody rights revoked
The child’s father was convicted in 2015 by the Calvados Assize Court for having kidnapped and kidnapped his son. This former divorced executive turned mason had never brought Mathis back to his mother on September 4, 2011, in Caen, as he should have done at the end of his weekend custody rights.
He had claimed during his trial to have entrusted him to third parties abroad after spending “a month” with him, without ever saying to whom he had handed over his child, wishing to “protect” them.
He claimed he had reappeared when he came of age
“In 2015, at the assizes, he claimed that Mathis, when he turned 18, three years ago, would have reappeared and said that he was very good, that his father had made a good decision… However, we never heard from him,” said Me Aline Lebret, lawyer for the young boy’s mother.
DNA found
Second element explaining the indictment for murder, according to the lawyer, the discovery of “the presence of Mathis’ DNA on the trunk mat” in the accused’s 206 found in 2011 in Lahonce in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques , “which is still disturbing.”
“I have always refused to allow this matter to end (in 2015 after the trial) and I have, since 2016, made requests for important investigative acts which have been carried out. The DNA analyzes arrived a year and a half ago, and then by the time we compared them to the IRCGN (Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie)…” she added, saying no have “no doubt” about the guilt of Sylvain Jouanneau.
Contacted by AFP, his lawyer, Me Félix Gluckstein, did not wish to comment immediately.
An investigation for homicide, separate from the kidnapping and sequestration case, was opened in parallel to shed light on the disappearance of the minor and so that the investigation could continue after the judgment at the assizes.
Released in May 2028
“Incarcerated for his 2015 conviction and released in May 2028, he was placed in pre-trial detention under a criminal committal warrant, this detention is motivated by the fact that he could have benefited from sentence adjustments before May 2028 in connection with his first conviction,” indicated the same judicial Source.
“There are issues of inconsistency, the fact that it was the last to have seen him alive, the fact that several people saw him alone after having kidnapped him or even that we found the DNA of the child on the floor mat of the trunk of the car he used. This suggests that a body was lying inside,” said this Source, adding that this DNA analysis “had not been carried out” before.
On Tuesday, the investigating chamber of the Caen Court of Appeal, contacted by the defendant who contested his pre-trial detention, confirmed his placement in detention in this aspect of the case, according to the same Source.
“He took my son from me”
In 2015, the police unsuccessfully launched a call for witnesses with a portrait of the aged child. Mathis’ mother, Nathalie Barré, had written a book “He took my son from me”.
(AFP)
