French appeals court jails Chilean for murder of Japanese student
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A French appeals court upheld a lower court's 28-year prison sentence for Chilean defendant Nicolas Zepeda.
PHOTO: AFP
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VESOUL, France – A French appeals court on Dec 21 upheld the prison sentence of a Chilean man for the premeditated murder of his Japanese former girlfriend in 2016.
A lower court in April 2022 sentenced Nicolas Zepeda to 28 years in prison for killing Ms Narumi Kurosaki, then aged 21, in December 2016 in the eastern French city of Besancon.
“You have been found guilty of premeditated murder,” Judge Francois Arnaud said on Dec 21, as he confirmed the sentence, with the 33-year-old standing head-bowed in the courtroom.
Having lost in both trials, Zepeda’s legal team swiftly announced that he would take his case to France’s highest appeals court.
Zepeda has claimed throughout the appeals trial in December that he is innocent.
“I’m certainly a long way from the person I’d like to be. But I am not a murderer,” Zepeda said again on Dec 21, before the jury retired to deliberate.
He appeared to be in tears after the verdict.
During the appeals trial, Zepeda, speaking excellent French, often appeared to have difficulty explaining many points of the case, conceding that he had lied about details.
His parents have been present throughout the trial, but did not make it to the verdict.
Arriving late back in court, his father Humberto Zepeda stroked his head to try to comfort him after hearing the outcome through a translator.
“Today, in France, an innocent man was convicted,” the father told AFP.
‘Sick jealousy’
Ms Kurosaki’s body has not been found, and prosecutors said all the evidence pointed to him being the premeditated killer of the scholarship student.
“I can find no mitigating circumstances,” said Besancon Prosecutor-General Etienne Manteaux, using the term “femicide”.
Ms Narumi Kurosaki’s mother, Mrs Taeko Kurosaki (centre), and boyfriend Arthur Del Piccolo (second from left) arrive at court with other family members.
PHOTO: AFP
Once he has served his prison sentence, Zepeda will be banned from returning to French territory.
Ms Kurosaki arrived in Besancon in the summer of 2016 to learn French. She was last seen on Dec 4.
Zepeda, whom she had broken up with two months earlier, was the last person to see her alive.
According to the prosecution, Zepeda arrived in France from Chile the same year. He killed Ms Kurosaki, probably by suffocating or strangling her, before disposing of her body in the woods or in the nearby Doubs river.
Zepeda’s trial had moments of intense emotion, with heart-rending testimony from Ms Kurosaki’s mother and two sisters, who spoke of their grief, particularly without even her body to grieve over.
Mrs Ana Luz Zepeda and Mr Humberto Zepeda, the parents of defendant Nicolas Zepeda, at an earlier appeals court hearing.
PHOTO: AFP
On Dec 19, public prosecutor Manteaux spoke of the Chilean’s “wounded male pride” and “sick jealousy”.
He said Zepeda could not bear the fact that Ms Kurosaki had left him and cut him out of her life by entering into a new relationship with Mr Arthur Del Piccolo, a local student initially suspected of her murder but quickly cleared.
The lawyer representing Ms Kurosaki’s family, Ms Sylvie Galley, said Ms Kurosaki had become a victim of a “toxic relationship”.
As well as upholding the previous sentence, the court ordered Zepeda to pay €220,000 (S$321,000) to Ms Kurosaki’s family and €5,000 to Mr Del Piccolo in damages.
Mr Renaud Portejoie, Zepeda’s lawyer, argued that Ms Kurosaki’s death could have been an accident. He said his client and Ms Kurosaki could have fought, leading to her accidentally hitting her head on a radiator in her room. AFP
