It’s been four years this Wednesday that his family has been trying to find out what may have happened to the young mobile gendarme Mathieu Caizergues, who disappeared on June 23, 2017 during a hike in the Mafate circus, with two other comrades. That day, while they go up the steep path leading to the Maïdo pit, where their vehicle is parked, the 24-year-old soldier, from Hérault, vanishes body and property after a last message sent to his relatives. by telephone.
Since then, his parents and their lawyers have moved heaven and earth to obtain explanations, in particular from the other gendarme and the husband of a gendarme who accompanied him that day, both indicted for non-assistance. to anyone in danger.
While the investigation was about to be closed, they obtained from the investigating chamber, on October 27, 2020, that new research be carried out in line with the point of view from which the gendarme could having fallen, halfway along this vertiginous path which winds for nearly 4 km. Research recommended from April 2020 by the Criminal Intelligence Service (SRC) of the national gendarmerie, whose specialists then wonder, without being followed by the investigating magistrate: “Is this an accident? or an event caused by the presence of a third party? “
Hundreds of meters of cliff to explore
These particularly delicate maneuvers began on June 9, 2021 and could continue for another two weeks depending on the weather. “It is a very fine operation in terms of safety, because it involves exploring several hundred meters of cliff in an extremely friable area”, explains Jean-Baptiste Haentjens, manager of the acrobatic works company Acropro, mandated by justice to carry out the operation. “We have to install relays and parking areas, and rope access technicians cannot work in superimposed because of the risk of landslides. “
In total, 1,800 m of ropes were deployed and several hundred kilos of equipment transported to the site by helicopter for this research on an unprecedented scale.
It was one of the acts long demanded by the councils of the Caizergues family, in order to “close all the doors.” “Maybe we will find personal effects, even a body, or even nothing at all, but in any case we had to check. Even a negative outcome is a positive act towards the manifestation of the truth, ”insists Me Félix Allary, lawyer at the Montpellier bar.
The latter, however, regrets that the other investigative acts requested have been refused. “We requested a requisition from the operators to try to locate Mathieu’s phone in case it was found, but also the analysis of the last selfie he sent of him with a big bump on his head and a blindfold on the eyes ”, lists the lawyer, who, with his colleague Me Jean-Charles Teissedre, also suggested a new hearing of the dog handler who attended the initial research, or a reconstruction of the hike in the presence of the indicted.
“It seemed to us a minimum for such a case”, regrets Me Allary, while the disappearance of Mathieu Caizergues remains one of the most unfathomable mysteries that Reunion has known in recent years. “Out of sixteen disappearances in the mountains on the island, it is the only one for which no body has ever been found,” says the lawyer.
“Everything has not been said”
Having come to Reunion several times to participate in their son’s research, Mathieu Caizergues’ parents did not make the trip this time. But they are ready “in case of discovery of a new element”, explains his mother, Delphine. “I prefer to be told once it is done,” she told the Parisian. “What is certain is that we will fight to the end to find out the truth about what happened to Mathieu. It’s impossible to accept a disappearance like this. We want to know what happened, and not everything has been said. “
Why has Mathieu Caizergues, who was supposed to walk between his two comrades, never returned home? Did he fall into the circus, or was he able to get out of it, only to disappear afterwards? Why did his two comrades, running out of telephone battery, wait until they returned home to sound the alarm, nearly two hours later? So many questions raised by the relatives of the young gendarme, declared dead on June 24, 2018 when his body was never found.
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