“You engaged in dialogue with this man about a plan to kill him, and you fueled this dialogue with him,” castigated William Pineau, lawyer for the victim’s parents and sister, deploring “a story that took place in total immorality.” The court found Giorgi Z. responsible for the moral damage suffered by the civil parties and ordered him to pay 8,000 euros to Magali Blandin’s sister, 9,000 euros to each of the parents and 10,000 euros to each of his four children.
Giorgi Z. was due to answer before the Rennes Criminal Court for attempted extortion, reclassified on Tuesday as “attempted blackmail”, fraud and failure to report the crime committed in February 2021 by Jérôme Gaillard in Montfort-sur-Meu (Ille-et-Vilaine).
“If I had believed he could do that, I would not have let him”
The facts were all the more difficult to establish since Jérôme Gaillard, who confessed to killing his wife with a baseball bat and then led investigators to his wife’s body five weeks after her disappearance, hanged himself in prison in the fall of 2021. His parents had been indicted after giving their son 50,000 euros to pay a hitman, supposedly recruited by Giorgi Z. and who had never actually existed. And they too committed suicide in February 2023, before they could be tried. That left Giorgi Z. faced with Jérôme Gaillard’s statements during the investigation.
Several months before the murder, Jérôme Gaillard had told Giorgi Z. of his desire to kill his wife. According to his statements, the Georgian to whom he rents garages then claims that he can find him a professional to “solve the problem” for 20,000 euros. “We never had any discussion about a hitman,” the Georgian claims in court, even though Jérôme Gaillard has mentioned several times the murder of his wife, who is in the process of divorcing.
In November and December, Giorgi Z. even recorded Jérôme Gaillard twice, without his knowledge, saying the following: “I love my wife more than anything, but I have no choice but to kill her.” “But he wasn’t a thug.” […] “If I had believed that Jérôme Gaillard could do that, I would not have let him,” protested Giorgi Z., sobs in his voice.
