Bailey writes to embassy to offer Du Plantier sympathies
The former journalist was twice arrested and released without charge over the murder of the French documentary maker, who was found battered to death on a laneway near her holiday home in West Cork.
Now Mr Bailey has contacted France’s embassy in Dublin, asking for his sympathies to be conveyed to the family of the dead French woman.
“I know that a letter was received by the French embassy in Dublin from myself,” Mr Bailey told the Irish Examiner yesterday.
“In it, I conveyed my sympathies to the family and stated that I hoped they accepted that I had nothing to do with the death of their daughter.”
Yesterday, his solicitor Frank Buttimer re-asserted his client’s innocence saying Mr Bailey was still pursuing libel actions against five newspapers. Appeals in the cases are scheduled for the High Court in Cork in February.
Following complaints from Mr Bailey over how the case was investigated, a garda internal inquiry was also set up. The inquiry team’s final report to Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy is scheduled within a matter of weeks.
Earlier this month, a district court ruled on a long-standing application for the return to Mr Bailey of personal possessions seized in early 1997.
Francoise Letellier, the French consul in Cork, yesterday confirmed officials at the Dublin embassy had received Mr Bailey’s letter.
“It was not a personal letter to the family. It was a letter to the embassy.
She said embassy officials “will not be commenting or replying to the letter”.
Ms du Plantier’s badly beaten body was found near Toormore, Schull, on December 23, 1996.
No-one has been charged with the murder of the 39-year-old despite an extensive garda inquiry.
On Sunday, her elderly parents, Georges and Marguerite Bouniol, attended a 10th anniversary Mass in Goleen and made a plea for the killer to hand himself in to gardaí.
