Diplomat on trial over killing of Monaco’s richest woman
in Monte Carlo WHEN Monaco’s richest woman was gunned down after visiting her son in a Nice hospital, the gangland-style murder stunned the Principality amid reports of a Mafia hit.
But rather than a mob boss, it is her daughter’s lover who will go on trial in Aix-en-Provence tomorrow, accused of ordering her 2014 killing to gain greater access to her fabulous wealth.
Hélène Pastor, 77, was a hard-nosed businesswoman who owned a huge slice of some of the world’s most valuable real estate. Closely linked to Monaco’s royal family, she was known as the “deputy princess”. She disapproved of her daughter Sylvia’s longtime live-in partner, Wojciech Janowski, 69, an elegant, charming and flamboyant Pole, and hired a private detective to investigate him.
The court will hear allegations that Mr Janowski instructed Pascal Dauriac, his personal trainer, to organise Mrs Pastor’s murder.
Much of the case against Mr Janowski will hinge on the testimony of Mr Dauriac, who has confessed to hiring the killers on his employer’s instructions. Mr Dauriac told police that Mr Janowski, who served as Poland’s honorary consul to Monaco, “cultivated the image of a respectable public figure… so he would not be thought capable of it [masterminding the killing]”.
The prosecution will describe how the murder marked a bloody collision between Monaco’s high society and Marseille’s seamy underworld. Samine Saïd Ahmed, 28, a drugs offender from a crime-ridden Marseille neighbourhood, is accused of shooting Mrs Pastor with a sawn-off shotgun at point-blank range. Salim Youssouf, 29, a former Marseille gendarme who allegedly supplied the weapon, is also among the 10 defendants accused of involvement.
Mrs Pastor had just visited her son, Gildo, who was being treated in Nice for a stroke, when she was shot repeatedly as she was being driven out of the hospital. Mohamed Darwich, 64, her chauffeur, also died.
Mr Janowski initially confessed after his arrest, telling detectives he had wanted to end Mrs Pastor’s “emotional abuse” of her daughter, which he said was “destroying her”. Prosecutors, however, said they thought “he wanted to get hold of Sylvia’s inheritance”.
He later retracted the statement, claiming his French was too poor to understand the detectives’ questions.
Mr Janowski and Miss Pastor never married, although they lived together for 28 years and had a daughter, now 21.
Police discovered he had accumulated colossal debts from bad investments, although he enjoyed full access to Miss Pastor’s monthly allowance of €500,000 (£445,000) from her mother.
Police surmised that Mr Janowski may have become alarmed when Miss Pastor was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012, fearing that he could be left with nothing if she died.