In police custody and heard by investigators since Wednesday, Pierre Palmade is indicted and “placed under house arrest, within a hospital addiction service, under electronic surveillance” according to a press release from the prosecutor of Melun.
The prosecution, which had requested pre-trial detention, decided to appeal this decision. The two passengers in the vehicle were placed under the status of “assisted witness”, without indictment.
Injured in the accident, Pierre Palmade was initially hospitalized in Kremlin-Bicêtre before being transferred Wednesday to the Melun hospital center to be heard by investigators.
In addition to the actor, the accident left three seriously injured – a man, his son and his sister-in-law – occupants of the car hit by Pierre Palmade, who tested positive for cocaine. Pregnant, the woman on board lost her baby.
The two men suspected of being passengers in Pierre Palmade’s car and of having left the scene shortly following the accident were also referred and seized of the facts of non-assistance to a person in danger. They are placed under the status of “assisted witness”.
The two supposed passengers heard
The first, a 33-year-old Moroccan, was arrested early Wednesday morning in Clichy-la-Garenne (Hauts-de-Seine). The second went to the Melun police station late Wednesday followingnoon, accompanied by his lawyer.
These arrests took place as part of the investigation opened for homicide and unintentional injuries resulting in total incapacity for work of more than three months, per driver under the influence of narcotics, by the Melun prosecutor’s office.
The hearings of the two passengers should allow the investigators to understand the reasons for their flight and what they did following the accident, while the search of the home of Pierre Palmade, in Cély-en-Bière (Seine-et-Marne ), did not permit the seizure of narcotics. The two men were also questioned regarding the circumstances of the accident and the hours that preceded it.
The “devastated” pregnant woman
According to the first elements of the investigation communicated by the prosecutor of Melun, the vehicle driven by Pierre Palmade, who had consumed cocaine, struck Friday around 7 p.m. a vehicle which was coming opposite near Villiers-en-Bière, in the south of Seine-et-Marne, for an undetermined reason.
At the edge of this Renault Megane, a 38-year-old Seine-et-Marnais, his six-year-old son and his 27-year-old sister-in-law. Six and a half months pregnant at the time of the accident, she lost her child following an emergency cesarean delivery. According to the family lawyer, Me Mourad Battikh, the driver and his son were still in intensive care on Wednesday.
The woman, who was expecting her first child, is “devastated”, added the lawyer. “She remembers the dazzling headlights, arriving full face” and “the swerve given by the driver to avoid the vehicle”, fifteen minutes following leaving her in-laws to join the neighboring department of Essonne where she resides .
Palmade is “ashamed”
The investigation will have to determine if the child was dead before delivery or if he lived a few seconds before his death. If necessary, this death will justify possible prosecution for “manslaughter”. “The family hopes for justice and that the notoriety of (Pierre) Palmade does not influence the investigation,” added Mr. Battikh.
The actor is “ashamed” and is ready to assume “the consequences of his actions”, his sister Hélène Palmade said in a press release on Tuesday. Pierre Palmade was sentenced in 1995 for cocaine use. In 2019, he was taken into custody for use and acquisition of narcotics following being falsely accused of rape.
