On 23 July 2019, Désiré Laval François was killed on the beach of Graviers in Rodrigues. The three accused: Cinthia Speville, Didier Jean Louis and Louis Emmanuel Adeline, pleaded guilty to the murder of 66-year-old Désiré Laval François, whose lifeless body was found on the beach of Anse Femi in Rodrigues in 2019. The sexagenarian’s wife, Cinthia Speville, 21, said that her husband Désiré Laval raped her several times. She was eight months pregnant at the time. Hence her decision to have him eliminated. After killing him, they threw his body into the sea before fleeing to Mourouk where they drank beer with the money in the victim’s clothes.
The verdict fell on Thursday at the court. The wife of Désiré Laval François, Marie Cynthia Spéville, was sentenced to 25 years of penal servitude while his accomplices Henry Didier Jean-Louis received 30 years in prison and Louis Emmanuel Adeline 27 years.
The judgement was pronounced by Judge Luchmyparsad Aujayeb, who explained that the sentences handed down were proportional to the degree of involvement of each defendant in the crime committed. The body of Désiré Laval François was found on the beach on 23 July 2019 and the post-mortem examination attributed his death to a fracture with dislocation of the cervical vertebrae. And he had injuries all over his body.
Here is the judgment: state-v-henry-didier-jean-louis-anor-2023-scj-44
