Pastor case : life sentence requested for Janowski on appeal

On Tuesday 9 November 2021, the public prosecutor Pierre Cortes asked for life imprisonment for Hélène Pastor’s son-in-law, accused of her murder.

The appeal has changed nothing: the Bouches-du-Rhône assizes court lawyer once again requested a life sentence be handed down to Wojciech Janowski, with a 22-year minimum custodial sentence. He also requested life imprisonment for the alleged killer and lookout, 30 years for former sports coach Pascal Dauriac and eight years for a man suspected of having acted as a middleman.

A long indictment against the defendant

The public prosecutor Pierre Cortes spoke of the “avalanche of damning evidence” against Hélène Pastor’s son-in-law. “Without him, nothing would have happened, it all starts with him”, he declared to the court. He stated that Wojciech Janowski financed “his mother-in-law’s murder with his mother-in-law’s money”, which he admitted to in “precise, detailed and repeated confessions”.

The former consul Wojciech Janowski is accused of having ordered the murder of his mother-in-law Hélène Pastor, heiress to a real estate empire.  On 6 May 2014, the billionaire and her driver Mohamed Darwich were the victims of a shooting as they parked outside Nice hospital.  Hélène Pastor died of her injuries on 21 May.  Wojciech Janowski had already been sentenced to life imprisonment in the first trial and decided to appeal.