FOR the past twenty-five years the grammatically incorrect expression “Omar m’a tuer” has taken an almost cultural significance in France (it should be tué instead of tuer to signify “Omar killed me”). Intellectuals employ it to accuse each other of ideological trespasses, journalists use it in order bring to light cases of false charges and even youngsters send mobile phone text messages to each other containing the same error on purpose, to say something like “you killed me with your joke”.
The origin of this funny sentence however is no joke. On June 24, 1991 a rich widow named Ghislaine Marchal was found dead in her villa La Chamade à Mougins, not far from the French Riviera.
She was stabbed a number of times and the killer had pushed her into her underground wine cellar and locked the door.
The victim, still alive though bleeding profusely, used her own blood to scribble with her index finger the above-mentioned statement on the inside facet of the white-painted door, identifying her Moroccan gardener Omar Raddad as her murderer.
The neighbours, following a number of unsuccessful attempts to get in touch with Marchal, called the police. The last person they had seen entering La Chamade, they testified, was the gardener. Raddad was arrested shortly afterwards and was produced before the judges. The prosecution pleaded the cause of the crime was an argument the gardener had had with his employer three days before her death concerning a demand for an advance on his salary.
The defence on the other hand raised doubts over the authenticity of the sanguine message on the wine cellar door.
Though the analysis proved it to be written in the victim’s own blood, questions were asked as to how an educated lady like Marchal could make such an elementary grammatical error. The prosecution’s answer to this objection was that it was not abnormal for a person, who was stabbed and had lost much blood, to be unable to think clearly and consequently make a mistake while attempting to write.
After three years of trial the court finally sentenced the accused to eighteen years in prison for the murder of Marchal.
Raddad’s advocate Jacques Vergès, who died two years ago, had already enjoyed at the time a certain amount of notoriety for his often provocative statements. Upon his client’s conviction he told a group of journalists: “A hundred years ago Captain Alfred Dreyfus was condemned for being a Jew. Today we are sending Omar Raddad to jail because he is an Arab.”
The ‘Omar killed me’ affair remained at the centre of the media’s attention for many years to come; a number of books were written and even a film was made with the gardener as its main character.
When the details finally reached the ears of Morocco’s King Hassan II, he made a personal request to the then French President Jacques Chirac to use his powers and show some leniency in favour of Raddad.
Chirac obliged Hassan II by granting the convicted man a presidential pardon that resulted in his release in 1998 after having served nearly five years in prison instead of the original sentence of eighteen years.
Raddad returned to Morocco where he lives today with his mother; but his case took a new turn last week when a lawyer Sylvie Noachovitch filed a petition requesting the authorities to order a fresh analysis of the fingerprints that were found on the wine cellar door and walls.
The lawyer says: “Raddad has continued living a miserable life. Although a free man today, he suffers from grave depression on account of the false accusation and could never work again. Once the DNA results are known, we will be able to identify the real killer.”
—The writer is a journalist based in Paris.
Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2015
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