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08th Sep 2021

Ian Bailey claims he knows who killed Sophie Toscan du Plantier

Clara Kelly

Ian Bailey Sophie Toscan du Plantier

“If my own theory is correct, and I can’t say too much about it – the murderer is dead.”

Ian Bailey has claimed that he knows who killed Sophie Toscan du Plantier, adding that he believed the murderer is already “dead”.

Last week Sophie’s son, Pierre-Louis Baudey-Vignaud, called for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to put Bailey on trial in Ireland while speaking on Friday night’s edition of The Late Late Show.

Following the interview, Bailey told Newstalk on Wednesday that while he is “very, very sorry for the pain and suffering that Pierre-Louis and the family have gone through” he believes holding him responsible is “just ridiculous at this stage.”

“I just think it’s really sad for everybody… and it’s all based on a dirty, rotten stinking lie from day one that I’m somehow connected to this crime. It’s 25 years on and it’s exacting its toll on a lot of people,” he said.

Bailey added that he has his own “theory” as to who killed Toscan du Plantier, saying that they passed away “quite a long time ago”.

“Is the killer still alive? I keep seeing this reference, the fact that the killer I think – if my own theory is correct, and I can’t say too much about it – the murderer is dead and has quite a long time ago passed away,” Bailey said.

“I don’t absolutely 100% know… my belief is that the murderer is probably dead – but that’s a belief, I can’t prove that”.

Clip via The Late Late Show

Baudey-Vignaud said on Friday: “It’s been 25 years. The truth has not arrived yet. We must end this story, for me, for my mother, for Irish people.”

“Irish people, you have a murderer still living in Ireland,” he added, calling on the extradition of Bailey for a trial in France.

Bailey has maintained his innocence in regard to the murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan Du Plantier after first hitting headlines as a suspect in the case.

The brutal murder, which took place in the town of Schull in west Cork in 1996, triggered one of the biggest murder investigations Ireland had ever seen and became a national obsession.

Over the past quarter of a century, facts and information about the death of Sophie Toscan du Plantier are still being released to the public, with most people in Ireland able to give a broad strokes retelling of the murder.

In 2019, a French Court found Bailey guilty of voluntary homicide, sentencing him to 25 years in prison.

Ireland didn’t extradite Bailey due to a Supreme Court ruling in 2012 that the Irish extraterritorial provision was not the equivalent of the French legislation and therefore they were not reciprocal.

Bailey was not present for the French trial after winning the legal battle against his extradition.

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