Florent Lemaçon's Death: Post-Mortem Does Not Reveal at Whose Hands he Died

Florent Lemaçon, the captain of the yacht TANIT was killed by a single bullet to the head, but whose bullet is was is apparently not yet clear to those who conducted the post-mortem examination.

Though the given evidence points into the direction that a bullet fired by one of the commandos killed the sailor, the officials said Friday that a post-mortem had not enabled them to determine at whose hands he died.

"It is [at the moment] impossible to determine" declared Hervé Pavy, "because not all pieces of evidence were provided to answer this question".

The experts require to examine the guns used by both sides and inspect the sailing boat but want to also wait until the official investigation by French authorities into the whole case has concluded. Still no clues have been provided what happened with the third pirate, who was reportedly shot at from afar, but whose body was not found on the deck and who is said to have gone over-board.

The other pirates were said to have been under deck with the hostages at the moment of the late afternoon attack. Some officials spoke of 2 some of 3 remaining while 3 where arrested. It is presumed that at least one Somali guarded the skippers wife as well as the child in the stern cabin and another one the two male passengers at the bow cabin while one was with the captain at the centre underneath the gangway hatchet. These three hostage-takers allegedly fired from underneath at the 8 boarding commando soldiers while they fired through the deck into the boat from above. Chloé, Mr. Lemaçon’s wife, and Colin, their three-year-old son, were rescued from a cabin in the stern of the craft while Mr. Dorian Pierre and Mr. Steven Ménoret, friends of the Lemaçons, were rescued from a cabin in the bow.

With 3 arrested, 2 dead and one missing pirate somehow 6 hostage takers are accounted for, while local reports speak of a 14 man strong group to which most likely also 3 survivors in a small blue vessel as well as . It is not understood why neither the guns of the pirates, which have been recovered, nor the guns of the attackers have been made available to the investigating experts.

A forensic expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained that if the fatal shot had been fired by any of the pirates inside the small yacht, the evidence in form of powder particles at the head of the victim, which usually are found around a gunshot wound if the shot was fired at close range, could already have provided the evidence. Since such traces of powder residues are obviously missing, the bullet must have either come from afar or was fired through something which held the other non-bullet particles back (something like the deck planks or the hatch). It is not known to the public, where the yacht - the actual crime scene - is at the moment and to what extent pieces of evidence at the vessel can deteriorate or be tampered with.

The commando assault was launched from the French stealth frigate Aconit, while frigates Floréal and Commandant Ducuing were seconding and the German Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with hospital facilities was also nearby.

Meanwhile the three suspected Somali pirates captured by French commandos during the attack on the yacht TANIT have been charged with hijacking and kidnapping, said French prosecutors on Friday. All three suspected pirates were transported to the town of Rennes for questioning on Friday. They face life sentences if convicted of the charges pressed against them.The three pirates were captured on 10th April after French commandos launched a rescue operation to release five hostages on board a French yacht that was hijacked by a group of pirates off the coast of Somalia. Two pirates and the skipper of the yacht, the Tanit, were killed in the operation while the skipper's wife, son and two other crew were rescued from the yacht unharmed.

Source: Ecoterra Intl, April 19, 2009

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