Chilean Accused Of Murdering Japanese Ex-girlfriend Extradited To France

Murder suspect Nicolas Zepeda arrived in Paris on Friday after his extradition from Chile to face a possible trial over the 2016 disappearance of his Japanese ex-girlfriend, an airport official told AFP

Paris, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jul, 2020 ) :Murder suspect Nicolas Zepeda arrived in Paris on Friday after his extradition from Chile to face a possible trial over the 2016 disappearance of his Japanese ex-girlfriend, an airport official told AFP.

"He has just been taken into custody by the French authorities," the source said after the plane transporting Zepeda from Santiago touched down at Charles de Gaulle airport.

Zepeda, 29, will be taken directly to face questioning by a judge in Besancon, eastern France, ending a three-and-a-half year fight by French prosecutors for his surrender.

He is the only suspect in the disappearance and alleged murder of Narumi Kurosaki, a case that has gripped the press in Japan and France.

Kurosaki, then 21, vanished from her university in Besancon, near the French Alps, in December 2016 after having dinner with Zepeda.

By the time her disappearance was reported days later, Zepeda had returned to Chile.

French investigators believe he killed his ex-girl friend in a jealous rage, though her body was never found.

Zepeda's extradition ends a legal process in Chile that began in March when authorities finally accepted a request from French prosecutors to hand him over.

He had been under house arrest with police surveillance in the seaside resort of Vina del Mar, 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of Santiago.

The handover was delayed and complicated by the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent border closures.

"It's the start of the second phase of the investigation, perhaps with twists in this phase," Besancon public prosecutor Etienne Manteaux said Thursday.

Should he be indicted, Manteaux said he would ask that Zepeda be held in pre-trial detention.

Zepeda's extradition marks the third Chilean suspect sent to France, even though French authorities refuse to send former Chilean guerrilla Ricardo Palma Salamanca back to his homeland to stand trial for the 1991 murder of right-wing senator Jaime Guzman.

"Three years have passed since my beloved daughter disappeared... I pray that Nicolas will be tried in France, I would give my life for this," Kurosaki's mother Taeko wrote in a letter presented to the court in Chile.

"We will never forgive Nicolas, who took Narumi's life and her from the whole family," she said.

According to investigators, Zepeda, the son of a wealthy Chilean family, met Kurosaki in Japan in 2014.

After a breakup, he went to Besancon at the beginning of December 2016 to see her again, and on the evening of December 4 the pair entered her residence together.

French prosecutors say several students heard "howls of terror, cries" that night, but nobody called the police.

At the time of her disappearance, Kurosaki was in a new relationship, which prosecutors said angered Zepeda who threatened her in an online video he later removed.

Investigators claim that after arriving in France in 2016, Zepeda hired a car and drove to Besancon, stopping on the way to buy matches, flammable liquid and bleach at a supermarket.

Zepeda, who was questioned in April last year by a Chilean judge in the presence of French investigators, has denied any hand in Kurosaki's disappearance.