THE FAMILY OF Sophie Toscan du Plantier, who was killed in west Cork in December 1996, has filed a lawsuit for intimidation of a witness in connection with her murder.
Marguerite and Georges Bouniol, the dead woman's parents, her brother and uncles, as well as Assoph, the association created last year to seek justice in the case, are civil plaintiffs in the suit, which was filed with the prosecutor of the French republic at the Paris high court on July 30th.
The prosecutor will take several months to decide whether to accept the case.
Alain Spilliaert, the lawyer who prepared the lawsuit, said: "For nine years, a witness said she saw a suspect near the scene of the crime on the night it happened.
"This witness renewed her testimony during a defamation trial in December 2003 . . . then, in October 2005, she withdrew her testimony."
Mr Spilliaert said the lawsuit was against a person identified only as X. Mr Spilliaert also participated in a suit against X for murder, which was filed on January 17th, 1997, and is still pending.
"French penal law is applicable to any crime where the victim is a French citizen," he said.
In France, intimidation of a witness is punishable by three years in prison, Mr Spilliaert added. "In the first [murder] suit, the victim was Sophie Toscan du Plantier. In the second [intimidation] suit, the victims are her parents and the civil plaintiffs."
Mrs Bouniol wrote to the DPP, James Hamilton, on August 8th asking whether an official statement by the Garda Síochána on July 11th meant the affair was definitively closed.
"Following receipt of the investigation files . . . I made a decision not to institute any prosecution in respect of the murder," Mr Hamilton replied on August 15th. However he has reserved the right to return to the case. "Where a crime has been committed and no person has been made amenable to the courts, that case is never definitely closed," the DPP wrote.
The Department of Justice is in the process of transferring the file to the French ministry of justice.
The family is considering holding an overnight vigil on the scene of the murder during the night of December 22rd-23rd.
"It's important to draw attention to the fact that 12 years later, nothing has changed," said the victim's uncle, Jean-Pierre Gazeau.
Earlier this year, Assoph (Association for the Truth About the Murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier) appealed for fresh information in the case.