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13 june 2009


Woman pleads guilty to French banker’s killing


Source: www.themalaysianinsider.com The Malaysian Insider - Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia


GENEVA, June 10 - A Frenchwoman pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing a French banker after kinky sex and an argument over $1 million, saying the crime was “not a question of money but of the heart”.


Cecile Brossard, a 40-year-old artist, interrupted proceedings to tell the packed Geneva courtroom that she had committed an “abominable act” against her lover Edouard Stern, and wanted the full truth to be known.

Stern, 50, was found dead in his locked luxury Geneva flat on March 1, 2005. Four bullet holes pierced the head-to-toe flesh-coloured latex outfit he still wore from the night before.

“My heart is full of remorse and pain. I have come to explain myself, not to defend myself, and say how it happened,” a sobbing Brossard said in a barely audible voice. “I know it was my fault.”

She expressed regret that his three adult children - two of whom were allowed to testify privately earlier - would never again be able to celebrate Christmas with their father.

“I want to tell them the truth, not destroy Edouard or dirty his name,” she said. He had been the “most intelligent, refined, cultivated and marvellous man” she had ever known.

Marc Bonnant, the Stern family lawyer, intervened to say: “If he was such a marvellous man, you shouldn’t have shot him”.

Stern’s family, including his former wife Beatrice, was seated just one metre behind Brossard, who wore grey trousers and a blue vest, her blond hair in a tight bun.

“The defence will plead it was a crime of passion,” Brossard’s defence lawyer Alec Reymond told the courtroom.

Court papers showed Brossard confessed to having killed Stern with his own revolver after an argument over $1 million he put into her Swiss account after she demanded it as “proof of his love for her”. He blocked it after she refused to return it.

Investigating officers who testified on Wednesday quoted Brossard as having said she shot Stern after he told her: “One million dollars is a lot of money to pay for a whore.”

Stern, scion of a banking family and the 38th richest man in France, counted President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist politician Laurent Fabius among his friends. He was once heir apparent to his father-in-law, Michel David-Weill of the investment bank Lazard Freres.

Known for his abrasive style, he ran an investment fund from Geneva and gave advice on some of Europe’s largest mergers. His murder rocked the staid Swiss city’s financial circles.

Beatrice Stern, his wife from 1983 to 1999, testified that his children still spoke every day of their father. “He was their hero.” she said.

Edouard Stern had an “explosive” character at times but quickly regained his composure and was not a manipulator, she said.

“Nothing could have justified killing him. It made no sense.”
Two police officers testified that Brossard was arrested two weeks after the crime after fleeing to Italy and Australia. The murder weapon, which she had thrown into Lake Geneva, and the dominatrix clothing she had worn were also recovered.

Chief prosecutor Daniel Zappelli has said he will seek a conviction for murder, for which the maximum penalty is 20 years’ imprisonment, rather than a crime of passion, which has a 10-year maximum sentence. A verdict is expected on June 19. - Reuters