「私は殺していない」 黒崎さん不明事件　チリ人被告が控訴審で無罪主張

【ブズール（フランス）ＡＦＰ＝時事】フランスで２０１６年１２月に日本人留学生の黒崎愛海さん（当時２１）が行方不明になって７年となる４日、殺人罪に問われているチリ人の元交際相手、ニコラス・セペダ被告（３２）が控訴審の初公判で「私は殺していない」と無罪を主張した。（写真は、仏東部ブザンソンの裁判所に出廷したニコラス・セペダ被告〈中央左〉と黒崎愛海さんの家族〈下段〉の法廷画）
　検察は一審で、セペダ被告は黒崎さんとの別れを受け入れられず、ブザンソンを訪れて学生寮の部屋で黒崎さんを殺害した後、ジュラ山地の森に遺体を遺棄したと主張し、目撃者の証言や電話の通話記録、セペダ被告が借りたレンタカーの位置情報を証拠として提示。セペダ被告は昨年４月、一審で禁錮２８年を言い渡された。
　黒崎さんの遺体は見つかっていない。
　セペダ被告は東部ブズールの裁判所で開かれた控訴審で、「私は愛海を殺していない」と勾留中に学んだフランス語で主張した。
　さらに、黒崎さんの母親と妹２人を含む満員の傍聴席の前で「起訴事実を全力で否認する」「本当の悪夢だ」と訴える一方で、「彼女の家族の大きな悲しみを忘れることはない」と述べた。
　黒崎さんの家族の弁護士、シルビー・ガレー氏は会見で、「家族がきょうこの場所にいる理由はただ一つ、愛海さんを追悼するためだ」と説明。「家族は、セペダ被告が事実を明らかにしたり、真実を告白したりすることを全く期待していない」と語った。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/12/05-16:56）

A Chilean man insisted on Monday he did not kill his Japanese ex-girlfriend Narumi Kurosaki in 2016, at the start of his appeal against his murder conviction in a French court.
Nicolas Zepeda was sentenced in April last year to 28 years in jail for the murder of Kurosaki, then aged 21, in December 2016.
Her body was never found.
The appeal trial opened exactly seven years after Kurosaki was last seen.
I did not kill Narumi, Zepeda, 32, said in French, speaking in court in the eastern town of Vesoul.
I contest with all my might the things I am accused of, said Zepeda, who has learnt French in prison.
It has been a real nightmare, he said in front of a packed courtroom, which included the victim's mother and two sisters.
I think of her family's enormous grief, which I carry with me all the time, he added, visibly moved.
In February, the appeal was delayed after the defendant's lawyer was changed at the last moment.
Sylvie Galley, who represents Kurosaki's family, told reporters: If the family is here today, it's for one and only one reason -- to honour Narumi's memory.
The family has come without any hope of revelation, confession or truth from Nicolas Zepeda, she added.
Galley said that the family had already mourned Narumi and that maintaining hope would be extremely destructive.
- 'Difficult trial' -
The defendant's father, Humberto Zepeda, said he wanted to see his son exonerated at the end of the new trial.
No-one can say with certainty today that Narumi is dead, he said. Scientifically, it's impossible, he added.
This is the 21st century. A country as developed as France cannot sentence a person to 28 years on the basis of a hypothesis. It's not possible.
Renaud Portejoie, a lawyer for Zepeda, said he hoped the new trial would help change the situation.
The trial ahead of us is difficult, impossible some would say, but we are ready to do our outmost to ensure that this second trial is different from the first, he said.
He has commissioned a new psychiatric examination and may call on new witnesses.
Kurosaki, a brilliant scholarship student, arrived in the eastern French city of Besancon that summer to learn French.
She disappeared on December 4.
Zepeda, with whom she had broken up a year earlier, was the last person to see her alive.
The Chilean has admitted spending the night with Kurosaki in December, claiming he ran into her by chance.
Several witnesses reported hearing screams of terror, although none called the police at the time.
Some of Kurosaki's friends received strange messages in the following days from her social networking accounts, which police believe were sent by Zepeda.
He was extradited from Chile to France in 2020.
Prosecutors said at the first trial that Zepeda was unable to deal with the couple's break-up, travelling to Besancon to kill Kurosaki in her student dorm room before dumping the body in the forests of the rugged Jura region.
They pointed to evidence from witnesses, telephone records and geolocation of the car Zepeda hired.