Nordahl Lelandais’ mother, Christiane Lelandais, said on Monday that she no longer had “the right to live” and was “insulted everywhere” since her son was implicated in the death of little Maëlys.
“Being the mother of Nordahl Lelandais is an immeasurable difficulty, we are rejected from everywhere, we are insulted from everywhere, I do not have the right to live”, declared Christiane Lelandais before the Assize Court of the Isère who has been judging his son since Monday.
“If I’m still standing, it’s because I have my children and a grandson, but I don’t have the right to live, I don’t have the right to smile, I don’t have the right to do nothing”, she continued at the end of her testimony, during which the 73-year-old retiree was under the fire of questions for more than an hour.
Then invited to react, Nordahl Lelandais considered that the questions asked of his mother and previously of his half-sister were “hard”. “Sometimes it feels like they’re being judged, ‘Why do you love your son?’ It’s a tough question,” he lamented. His half-sister, questioned shortly before regarding what she would like to say to the accused, had replied: “I am here”.
Nordahl Lelandais must answer before the assizes of the death of little Maëlys De Araujo, who disappeared during a wedding party in August 2017 and whom he has since admitted to having killed “unintentionally” according to him.
Already sentenced in Chambéry in May 2021 to 20 years in prison for the murder of young soldier Arthur Noyer, he faces life imprisonment.
