Fresh forensic tests in du Plantier case

FRENCH police are due in Ireland next month to carry out forensic tests as part of their investigation into the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork almost 15 years ago.

The forensic experts from the France Scientific Police unit will examine several items they hope will help them identify the killer of the 39-year-old French film maker.

They are expected to examine:

* The clothes Sophie was wearing the night she was killed;

* The concrete block that was used to crush her skull;

* Scrapings taken during the postmortem from underneath her fingernails.

All of the items have already been examined by Garda forensic experts but have no yielded no useful evidence.

However, Alain Spilliaert, the lawyer representing Sophie’s family, said there have been considerableadvances in forensic technology in the last 15 years.

The French forensic experts hope new technologies will produce vital evidence.

Ms Toscan du Plantier’s body was discovered lying at the bottom of a dirt track outside her holiday home, at Toormore, near Schull, on December 23, 1996.

No one has been charged with her murder.

Following a campaign by her family, a French judge ordered the exhumation of the filmmaker’s body to allow a new postmortem to be carried out in 2008.

The forensic examination of the items linked to the case is seen as a major development in the French probe.

Meanwhile, a High Court judge will give his decision on March 18 whether to extradite journalist Ian Bailey to France for questioning about the case.

Mr Bailey, 53, The Prairie, Schull, Co Cork, has always denied any involvement in the killing.

He was arrested twice but no charges were ever preferred against him.