Son-in-law admits to ordering Monaco heiress’ murder
aix-en-Provence: A Polish man long suspected of ordering a mafiastyle hit on his partner’s wealthy mother broke down in a French court and confessed to her killing.
Wojciech Janowski was Poland’s honorary consul to Monaco at the time of the murder of billionaire heiress Helene Pastor, 77, and her driver. They were gunned down in her car by two hitmen in the French city of Nice on May 6, 2014.
At first Janowski admitted to orchestrating her death but he later retracted, saying his difficulties with French had made him misunderstand investigators’ questions.
Yet after two weeks on trial with nine others suspected of playing a role in Pastor’s death, Janowski’s lawyer shocked the court on Tuesday by saying his client “is guilty of ordering Helene Pastor’s murder”. “These words, which you wanted to hear from him, come from my mouth. He tried to say these words but he couldn’t,” Eric Dupond-Moretti said as Janowski wept silently.
He said Janowski was trying to protect his partner Sylvia Ratkowski from her mother, who had made her life a misery, and that he had not ordered the driver’s death.
But that claim has been contested by Janowski’s ex-personal trainer Pascal Dauriac, who is also on trial.
Dauriac says he was ordered to find the two killers and have them murder the driver and steal Pastor’s purse to make it look like a robbery.
The killing shocked the tiny principality of Monaco, where Pastor’s family had built up a real estate portfolio of 4,000 apartments, providing her with an estate worth €
12bil (RM57.6bil).