The husband of murdered French woman Sophie Toscan du Plantier this weekend appealed to anyone with information which could assist gardai to complete their investigation into his wife's killing in west Cork over three years ago to come forward.
Mr Daniel Toscan du Plantier told a press conference in Cork on Saturday that the Garda had identified a murder suspect but required further evidence to forward a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
"My feeling is that 90-plus per cent is clear, but there are still a few points which need to be solved to bring a real, solid, good file to the DPP, but he will have it," said Mr Toscan du Plantier. "We must ask people who could have information about that murder, about that terrible night of December 22nd, 1996, to come forward. We need more witnesses, more information, more testimony - not to discover something new, but to confirm the information already discovered, which is enormous." Mr Toscan du Plantier said he believed his wife's killer would be in jail in France now if the same evidence which gardai had obtained was available to French police and the case was prosecuted under French law.
"It would be finished for years and one could live and someone would be in a French prison - it's due to the laws; clearly the laws are so absolutely different. In France we have a system which authorises a judge so the judge is in charge. They can decide to arrest someone for months.
"In your system you have a few hours to speak to someone, a few hours is not much to find a solution, that's a difference of law, that's a difference of civilisation," said Mr Toscan du Plantier, who had previously been highly critical of both the Garda's and the Department of Justice's handling of the case.
He said his wife had only come to Ireland a few days before Christmas 1996 to repair the heating system at the dormer cottage at Toormore, outside Schull. She had done so despite requests not to travel but spend the run-up to Christmas in France.
"Sophie came to Ireland for just three or four days because she wanted to repair the heating. Everybody was against it but she wanted to come. She was very obstinate in life," he said, before speaking movingly of their last phone conversation just hours before she was murdered.
They spoke at around 11 p.m. on December 22nd and she told him that she had managed to obtain a choice of flights back to France and would be with him for either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. She would decide the next day, December 23rd, he said.
"It was a very fresh and charming conversation and we had a joke about our Christmas gifts; if they were going to be different from the previous year. She was peaceful, obviously without any feeling of fright, that's for sure. At that time of her life she was extremely happy."
Mr Toscan du Plantier said he had avoided coming to Ireland since his wife's murder because he feared it would be too upsetting for him.
"For Sophie, this was a great place, probably her place on Earth, she chose it, she loved it. It was for her the best time she could have and she never felt like a tourist here," he said, adding that he also avoided Ireland because he wanted to remember his wife as she was when they last spoke on the phone.
"When I learned of her death I preferred immediately to fix her image with her last words. I never saw her body or photographs. She's buried in a little cemetery in my village in Gascony. I feel very close to her every day but in a quiet way, in a quieter way than before."
