It will arrive two weeks later than announced on French soil. The extradition to France of Nicolas Zepeda, a young Chilean suspected of having murdered his ex-Japanese girlfriend in Besançon in 2016, will finally take place on July 23, justice announced on Friday.
« L’extradition […] is agreed for Thursday July 23 “, indicated in his decision the judge of the Supreme Court Jorge Dahm at the end of a hearing organized by videoconference at the request of the parquet floor which wished a hardening of the preventive measures with regard to the suspect.
A coronavirus lag
The judge thus decided to apply a “measure of total house arrest” in order to “guarantee delivery (to France) and avoid a possible danger of absconding” on the part of the 29-year-old suspect. Until then, Nicolas Zepeda was under judicial supervision, accompanied by a ban on leaving the territory. At the start of the week, an Interpol Chile document mentioned the possible date of July 9 for extradition. But this date was ultimately not retained, said the judge.
The Chilean Supreme Court confirmed on 18 May the young man’s extradition to France. French authorities normally had sixty days to pick it up, but restrictions linked to the coronavirus pandemic (border closures, scarcity of flights) made matters more difficult.
Nicolas Zepeda is suspected of the assassination of his ex-girlfriend Narumi Kurosaki, a 21-year-old Japanese student who lived on the Besançon university campus, in eastern France. She was last seen on December 4, 2016 on campus and her body was never found. According to the investigation, shortly before Narumi’s disappearance, the two young people had distanced themselves and the Japanese student had started a new relationship, arousing jealousy of the Chilean.
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