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CRIME

Frenchman jailed for 30 years for killing in-laws over ‘Nazi gold hoard’

A French man has been sentenced to 30 years for killing four of his in-laws with a crowbar after becoming convinced they were hiding a hoard of gold from him.

Published: 8 July 2021 08:29 CEST
Frenchman jailed for 30 years for killing in-laws over 'Nazi gold hoard'
The family were killed in their home in Orvault, near Nantes. Photo: Sebastian Solom Gomis/AFP

The punishment for Hubert Caouissin, 50, fell short of the life sentence demanded by prosecutors, as the jury accepted his lawyers’ argument of diminished responsibility following seven hours of deliberations on Wednesday.

His former partner Lydie Troadec, 52, was sentenced to three years in jail, one suspended, for interfering with a crime scene and concealing a corpse.

Caouissin had already admitted to killing Brigitte and Pascal Troadec, both 49, and their children Charlotte, 18, and Sebastien, 21, at their home in Orvault near western city Nantes on the night of February 16th-17th 2017.

He then spent three days painstakingly dismembering the bodies at his farm, throwing muscles and organs into the bushes in the hope that they would be eaten by animals and burning skin, bones and fat in an oven.

Caouissin was convinced that Pascal Troadec had concealed a family fortune in gold ingots, supposedly a fraction of the reserves transferred from the Bank of France to Canada at the beginning of World War II that had later been discovered in Brest.

He claimed he had visited the family in Orvault to demand “information” on the supposed hoard, and killed his victims in self-defence.

His lawyer Thierry Fillion said the accused was suffering from “chronic paranoid delusions” that have been confirmed by psychologists and psychiatrists.

Defence lawyers urged jurors not to lock Caouissin up for life based on the diagnosis.

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CRIME

Two girls wounded in knife attack outside French school

An assailant on Thursday wounded two girls aged 6 and 11 in a knife attack close to their school in the east of France and was later arrested, officials said.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:33 CEST
Two girls wounded in knife attack outside French school

The 11-year-old was stabbed outside the school in the town of Souffelweyersheim, on the outskirts of Strasbourg, while the six-year-old was attacked by the same man nearby.

Both received superficial wounds, police said, adding the attacker did not appear to have any known links to radicals and was not previously known to the security services.

Both received superficial wounds, police said, adding the attacker did not appear to have any known links to radicals and was not previously known to the security services.

Both girls are being treated in a paediatric hospital. Parents were later in the afternoon allowed to pick up their children, who had been confined to the school in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

The attacker, born in 1995, was arrested in the area where he attacked the second girl, the police said. He no longer had the knife in his hand and did not resist arrest, it added.

The attack came as Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced a series of measures aimed at cracking down on violence committed by schoolchildren against their peers. There was no indication so far that the attacker had a link with the school.

“I’m really scared. We’ve been reassured that the children are safe inside, but we don’t know when we’ll be able to get them back,” Sarah, a mother of an eight-year-old pupil, told AFP before the green light was given to collect the children.

“A friend called me. She saw the commotion in front of the school as she passed by. Her reflex was to call me so that I could pick up my son.”

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