Episode 72: Who killed Robert Boulin

welcome to Crime most French a fortnightly podcast covering intriguing cases carried out on French soil research and narrated by Cedric and rudely interrupted by me Melanie we're the True Crime podcast all the lines crack open live out and let the Mayhem commence this is episode 72 who killed obera on the 30th of October 1979 the body of Robert abula Minister for work of the learn Central right government is found dead in a lake near Paris who killed the minister and why that's uh quite high profile it's one of the stories I remember from when I was a kid but only very vaguely because there was only six at the time five five so but I'm very I'm aware of his name and I'm vaguely aware that something happened to him but no more than that so he was the minister for work okay as in work in pensions of the Verde Regis Kurdistan government so it was the center-right government that reached power in 1974 with pompidoux so it's quite a young and dynamic leader oh he was not pompidou he was the youngest president at the time uh and I think only Sarkozy was younger no macron was younger but he was 40 around 40 when he was elected president and I think macron was 79 oh 39 or something so it was just marginally younger that's very young and that terrifies me that uh macron this is out significantly younger than me and I I find it hard to kind of Link try and be organized enough to get my shopping done once a week he runs a country I don't know but never mind yeah um well some people are like that so he was well considered at the time and he was expected to become Prime Minister fairly soon as well all right so he was being groomed for leadership he it's a bit complicated the president was center right the party was called UDF and he was right so he was right of the government it came from a party called rpr which no longer exists but people thought originally that he was made minister at some kind of a appeasement from the center right to the right to get their support but it happens that he was in fact very competent right and vge the president was um what now people call it technocrat he was very technical when he was going to have a meeting with people he would work all night to learn everything there is to learn about the subject and remember when I was doing the same thing so they got along really really well right okay I think macron's a bit like her as well yes yeah yeah so that's why they they kind of hit it off without knowing that it would happen and that's why VG several times in speeches said he was he will be my prime minister yeah and it ties into the story because it pissed off the right endlessly right because they saw him from that point on as a traitor in the century but when it will come back in the story so at 8 40 a.m on the 30th of October 1979 his body is found floating in about 60 centimeters of water in a small Lake in the west of Paris and it's not the type of year and time of year it would be kind of like going swimming in Paris it's starting to get a bit cold also that Lake didn't really have much water 60 centimeters was pretty standard for the Vegas it was a big pond all right okay it was about 200 meters from the road and nearby his car was parked with a goodbye note on the dashboard other tried to make it look like suicide but very quickly the Press relays that it is a suicide that's what they say straight away they don't say oh he was found dead they say straight away he committed suicide that's how they presented the thing at the one o'clock news in the afternoon which was only a few hours later yeah but that's what they were told by whoever was giving them the information I don't think they would do that now would they really taken seriously at the moment you can see how they treated Trump when the price starts saying that it's a suicide the body hasn't even been removed from the lake yet so they are just repeating what they've been told right what they are told is that the minister took some pills sleeping pills walked into the lake and drowned in 60 centimeters of water that's the story there given as the story they repeat [Music] as proof there are a few letters that he would have sent to people in the past in the recent past in which he said that he wanted to commit suicide the Press are kind of given something that is supposed to be proof and something quite plausible something plausible because you tend not to get people who are the top of their business you know on top of their career committing suicide is not really doesn't happen often in ministers No No in fact I can't remember the last one very quickly there is a cleavage at the National Assembly the center right of are happy with the explanation and the left thinks that something is fishy an MP law of abuse who will be prime minister prime minister in the 80s asks the Justice Minister if the truth will be known in the affair or if it's going to be buried is the prime minister replies to the government wants to truth to be known and it will do all it can for it to happen well I should be going without being said surely but it it the left felt like it had to be said because they didn't think the government would be truthful in it I see okay so now they're trying to essentially Corner the government in having to do something they won't be able to just let it die and disappear and nothing loses what happened because they now have said that they have to do everything they can to make it happen that's really what all that was even the president when he's interviewed by journalists he's asked direct questions about the case in the next few days and he says that he will make sure that the truth is known as well obviously there was no possible answer he couldn't answer no I'm going to make sure it's buried yeah so that's not a good answer anyway some ministers at the time remember that they were in a cabinet meeting on that morning and there was an empty chair his chair didn't know anything because at that point the meeting started before his body was found and they were sitting around the table and one of the important ministers wasn't there and they had no clue why but it just wasn't there and at some point a clock interrupts the meeting and gives the president a note small sheet of paper he reads it and he announced he announced announced your colleague obiabuna is dead he committed suicide last night under the meeting continued that's a bit cold like nothing happened with the one Minister that was interviewed not that long ago about it so it said it was so weird like a guy was missing we were told he was dead he committed suicide and that was it we've just continued and did our normal work I mean really it just sounds like somebody came in and said right we're going to be out of chips in the canteen at lunchtime carry on yeah that's good that is cool that is very weird and also the way he said your colleague I found very strange it wasn't it wasn't my Minister it was your colleague yes not even our colleague yes yes that's that's very strange very strange to make things weirder Minister uh ministers are asked not to go to the funerals and why well the reason why is that the the party uh he's party and the party in power didn't want to make a big thing out of it they didn't want to blow it into a massive State Affair all right so they decided oh they were trying to let the family grieve yeah if if no Minister goes then it's not important and therefore the price is not going to be mixing out of it and everybody will forget quickly at what their strategy so only the Prime Minister and interior minister went to the funeral and that's it right no other minister went and so presumably I mean at this time I'm thinking most of these ministers would have all of gone to uh Ina and they probably all knew each other yes um I I don't know if I've mentioned this before and and just to to give a quick background the French had a very elitist school which was he called The National um yes and you would have all of the High Flyers all the people it did really well would be recruited to go through this school and then you can work for the government and what other shape or form so these people would evolve kind of like rubbed elbows with this guy they wouldn't have just yeah they would have known him yeah well yes so but no Minister goes I think it's a bit cold that they didn't let anyone else go yeah because I mean to me he was very unusual as well if a minister dies normally the whole government and everybody in this party and all that everybody goes and in his case nobody did that just feels very strange yes well it is because people wanted to bury the the story they don't didn't want it to be a big thing in the Press with all the ministers and the president being there and if nobody goes at nothing to say therefore there's no story in the back of my head I know that we're doing a podcast called crime most French so I'm suspecting he didn't commit suicide I hope that's not spoiler for everybody yes so after the funeral who was one of his friends in the mirror of bottle for at least 50 years it was also a prime minister between 1969 and 1972. he was in mp as well most of his life went to talk to the family and he told them if you have dirt give it to me now and then release the dogs if you don't have anything I won't be able to help I won't have any more weight than Robert these people are dangerous wow that's what he told the family at the funeral so obviously he knew something he knew something that led to Robert Munoz death right but he never talked about it more than that the only other thing he did in assembly was to shot murderers when one of the ministers was talking so this feels so surreal yeah it is weird it is weird so obviously he knew something but didn't have the proof so he was hoping the family would have something I mean I feel like I'm in an Aaron Sorkin movie at the moment no that's pretty much it yeah in the meantime the body is removed from the lake obviously and they do an autopsy on it but not everything was as expected before I start the doctors who examine the body are forbidden to look at the skull a they are told that the family requested it which is denied by the window and his son yeah why would you disallow somebody to do their job this is a specialized job it turns out when journalists started digging into it that it was the cabinet manager of Robert so he's essentially cabinet manager office manager who said he was talking for the family and asks for the doctors not to look at the skull except he's the family never asked for it the denied it so that's a bit strange yes another thing to prove drowning would be to examine the Longs yes and confirm that the water in the lungs comes from the lake diatoms and all that and we know we watch Forensic Files yeah except that it's not done that's crazy and the lungs are taken out to put it into a jar and the jar disappears oh this is just this is crazy another thing is normally when the heart stops beating the blood pools in the lower part of the body yes and you can see the marks on the skin yeah yeah red pattern yes on the skin yes was found face down in the lake so he should be red so all the pulling should be on the front front of the body pudding is on the back so he didn't drown well oh he died somehow pooled and then turned around yes he drowned in a lake on his back yes yeah that's not possible it should be possible maybe but turning yeah I don't see how it would turn he would need something heavy to keep him underneath the water yes yeah yeah oh yeah yeah it's just not physically possible no and in 60 centimeters of water it's hard to see how exactly so that's another very strange thing but again somehow nobody cares that much nobody mentioned it nobody looks into it nobody's surprised no prints are taken anywhere no prints are taken things on his car no no prints are corrected oh my God and none of that changes the suicide explanation either so the police inquiry at that point is done is quick and the conclude to a suicide case closed yeah that's just not bull that's just [ __ ] sorry but no that he clearly didn't commit suicide yeah yes so there are some people looking into it and they're asking okay if you committed suicide why would you commit suicide he had found himself at the center of a an affair of fraudulent purchase of land on a Mediterranean Coast fairly recently it was published by a newspaper called Canada which is a political newspaper yes they reported that he bought land to build a holiday house which he did when it had already been sold to someone else so essentially he bought for Monday someone else which is exempt is it what it's called yes it's illegal here but yes before the same goes through oh yes no in that case it had already been sold to someone else and somehow he bought it instead of that person so essentially the sale was canceled after having been happened so that's what was that's what the newspaper say so it's like you buy the house yes you sign the sale contract yes and you're told ah no it's not happening after all yeah because that guy bought it instead I think I think I think if I'm remembering rightly because I don't think you can't do it in in Scotland but I think I think you can do that you used to be able to do that anyway in England so that's what he's accused of having done and apparently is following these Revelations which I've never been really approved um that he would have sent the letters that were then shown to the Press when he said he wanted to commit suicide and all that is that going to be enough to make you commit suicide but also his family denies that it is possible that he would have thought of suicide just for that he wasn't that kind of person and his friend who said no no that's not the guy who commit suicide that's a guy who fights back yes so for the family and the people who know him is not believable no these letters are fake according to them but that's what presented as an explanation for it also the people who knew him know that because he would not let that happen he would fight back they explained that the only reason why that would have happened what that information if it was true or not doesn't matter but what that information would have been given to the Press is to attack him personally and that would have come from his party the rpr that's what his friends say question during a radio interview um before his death Roberta declares that he's transparent on this affair has nothing to hide he knows facts that he can't mention on the radio I listened to the interview he said that I know things that I can't tell you here and it will come out and you will understand what's happening right obviously he died a few days later so clearly he did know something for for his friends it does smell like he knew something that someone else didn't want to to come out yes so according to people at the time Chicago took control of the rpr so later president in the 90s after quitting as prime minister he was prime minister in the mid 70s and he quit in 76 so at that point he took he took power he took power in the rpr party to the right-wing party and he used it to try to become president of Iran in 1981 presidential elections which he lost there's meter on that one wouldn't it so he says that he really is an open war against Fiji he hated it vge apparently all right okay and when video announced that Obama would be Bulan would be his prime minister at some point according to to people in the party that sent him into a rage and he decided to do something about it so some people say that shock was at the center of what of everything that happened to Robert really yes of course there's no proof of that because nobody will leave traces of that he wouldn't write it down and send a note to people of course no so now you would probably use telegram or WhatsApp so that it doesn't leave any trace or something like that but that's what people remember at the time right so they think that definitive the shark is behind it because he hated Fuji then hated obuna for being a traitor because the rpr is right-win party UDF is Center and even though you would think they would agree on a lot of things they also disagree strongly on a few others yeah and because Shirak has had quit as prime minister which opened the door to um possibly becoming prime minister yeah um apparently it was really really really pissed off all right okay the answer is English French Politics the it's a very very wide political uh spec oh compared to the US yes the whole of the whole political Spectrum in the U.S fits within one party here and there's dozens just just about yeah I mean it is it is uh not only hugely a big Spectrum there's also uh lots of parties you're you're just there's none there's no two-party system here at all no it's another two-party system and it varies a lot as well they have they're disbanded and recreated and yeah it's very Dynamic yes very Dynamic yes so yes you can see why there will be a lot of uh skullduggery going down if you're seeing to to piss off the wrong people yeah because it's not left against right no as the Americans would see it but really from here it would be right against right yes they're all on the right side but anyway um it's not left against right no it is really no all over the place oh no this couldn't be further from when you took power had a party that was ranging from Center left to right so he was covering two main parties and hundreds of so small Center parties as well yeah Hugh he hoovered up a lot of uh yes stragglers yes yeah so so that's a weird party that nobody would understand in the US or even in the UK no because it's a party that goes from the left to the right yes it was the strange party that still exists but probably won't fall much longer no not the way it's going so anyway that's where people think the the whole Affair came out it was probably made up by people who shall accent yeah to try to solve his name so that he wouldn't become Prime Minister and that didn't work obviously because evg just didn't give a crap he wanted somebody competing to be prime minister so it really didn't care and those stories were probably probably false and lots of people assumed that they were yeah so he wasn't interested he didn't didn't care so that didn't stop the problem that the rpr or Shirak had yeah so obviously they decided to go for another alternative which was to get rid of him that's what people say yeah in 2020 in March 2022 there was an interview with Brian aprons you might have seen him he was 91 at the time in 2022 and he was a minister many many times and that was not belonging before long before his death and he said that it was an assassination and the truth should be known even if it creates trouble for the party so he was minister at the time because he was 91 in 2022 he would have been young at the time but it would have been around and he would have been senior he would have been MP his whole life so he would have been around and seen things in the 60s 70s and yeah in a 20 22 interview he said yeah it was an assassination and it even though it's going to be hard for the party it should be known what happened oh yeah and then he died but there's apparently no no weird thing in his death it's just it was 90 when he was old yeah time catches up with the Union 90s yes so when people started looking at into it after the fact quite a long time after they started to see a few things not adding up so we know the autopsy doesn't make any sense no also early emergency responders who were interviewed in the 2000s so quite a long time after 30 years most of them were retired when they were interviewed said that one of them said that when he arrives on the scene he found the body of about nine meters from the shore with the head about two-thirds above the water and he said when I saw him I didn't think he had he possibly have drowned his head was pretty much entirely over over the water line okay so he he wouldn't have been struggling no obviously his body was heavier at one end and it just floated in a diagonal shape and his head was above the water so he didn't think he would have drowned no at the time he just came and he was an early emergency responder he also remembers that Robert's face was swollen and he had bruises and hematomas all over his face and he at the time when he was told it was a drowning he thought no how did you hit yourself with yourself when you're drowning water is not that hard no so to him it made no sense no that doesn't make any so I mean that makes even less sense than the blood pooling at the back yeah that exactly that doesn't make any sense either so a lot of the early responders when they were interviewed many years later the vast majority said they didn't think for a second that he'd drowned looking at the body and where it was found and how it was found there was also a firefighter who reported at the time that his body was folded to him it looked like he had been in a box right after he after he was killed and kind of became rigid that way right and then was thrown in the water because he thought when you drown you don't suddenly turn into a ball no you just you're flat no not in water you tend to ball up in water and that's probably how the head was above the water he wasn't floating it was actually possibly on his knees in 60 centimeters of water so most of his body was outside the water so to him that made no sense he couldn't explain it at the time and he had reported it at the time but nobody really listened to him there was also a fire diver firefighter diver because of food distant water and diverse because there's a bit of water that's the way you do things yeah and he said that when they got the body out of the water his shoes had no mud on it on them and his own shoes were totally covered in very sticky mud you know the black stuff yeah yeah so he floated floated over to the lake he hovered about the water yes and and then drunk and then drowned that's the only way you can explain it because your shoes were clean [Music] so that doesn't doesn't make any sense to him the older firefighting Personnel at the time so including those people were told that by the hierarchy a hierarchy to shut up and move on they were told it's not your problem you don't talk about it and that's when nobody talked about it wow even the short arms who were the first ones on the scene obviously because that steroids or jurisdiction injections outside big cities it's not the police station this is the army so akano who was one of the first ones on the scene noted that it was kind of strange that there were footsteps going to the water and then coming back yeah that is she should really only be one way you would think so yeah so he found that very strange and reported it as well but as soon as he does that the John damari was removed from the inquiry so then it was investigated by the police instead no right and no doubt somebody who was uh the right person for the job well when he was asked about it a long time later again in the 2000s his answer was well yeah at the time they must have thought that this is just found the truth so they were removed so the Jean diamond is not investigating the case when it should have been yep and when when he asked at the time about these footsteps where footsteps going to and from the water there was a guy there in civilian clothes who told him you ignore that is none of your business they have no idea who that guy was he was he didn't show any official card he wasn't wearing an uniform he was in civilian clothes they have no clue who that guy was but he was giving people orders including the order of being quiet and not talk about it he sounds like a cleaner it sounds a bit like a cleaner yeah it sounds like a Bluetooth he's Victor yeah yeah so nothing happens for a few years and four years after the body was found color photos of the the autopsy surface holy crap nobody knows where they came from but the family when they see those photos they discover that his face indeed had massive bruises they also didn't do an open casket at the funeral no obviously not um and that matches the description of what the First Responders when he said that he had bruises and couldn't explain how you drown and somehow get bruises on your face and there is just nothing about this that sounds even plausible yes because it's such a bad job yes one of the explanations people were given is oh well it just hit his face there's no rocks on that Lake all around the lake there's just no rocks you can't find a rock to hit your face on maybe if he'd fallen from kind of like a cliff in Packer but this is yeah exactly it's a small leak in the middle of nowhere there's no fault to happen it's not possible so the body is exhumed and a neurotypes is performed and it reports two fractures on the face that according to the doctor who made the autopsy wear done when he was still alive and the three doctors who do the second autopsy say he didn't drown and he didn't commit suicide well is anyone surprised by that not really now no but that's it nothing else happens because the inquiry is closed it wasn't a suicide and but we're not going to do anything about it yeah a second autopsy happens because the the family made a big fuss out of it and they sued the government as well so they're starting to lose starting the rules for against the government and be as part of that lawsuit they did in autopsy a second autopsy but that's it that it it died there I mean this is I almost feel this is kind of like crime most Russia yes yes or crime moves to Italy yes I mean this is crazy yeah especially for a minister it's not like a I don't know a homeless guy who was found on their Bridge it's it's a minister who was likely to become prime minister so it's not nobody it's people who would have somebody people would have known very well would have heard of a lord but yeah sometimes sometimes they managed to bury it I mean it's just crazy if this had happened in the states the whole world would know about it and this is the first time I'm hearing about it and it's crazy yeah so the reason why I'm talking about this story is because it restarted recently not good in 2015 Roberta's daughter decided to press charges against the state again good and in September 2015 the Versailles dribble tribunal opened the new query for secretary sequestration kidnapping followed by death or murder and they want to qualify what exactly were the circumstances of his death yeah so that starts again in 2015. in November 2020 a new medical examination takes place and rules are drowning and that was in part because of the fracture to the skull yeah because they said no you don't commit suicide by hitting your face on the rock that doesn't exist and then drown no so at that point that's where we are at the moment the new inquiry has been open there's been a new examination of the body but nothing else has happened yet it's taking a long time to investigate uh I just got got horrible feeling nothing will end up happening with this it's hard to say because the difference between now and 1979 is the people who were in bar at the time were the people who wanted him to shut up they're all dead now so there would be I would think a lot less resistance against knowing what happened because the people who are going to be accused of murder are long gone there's nobody left from 1979 who was a minister in 1979 or even running the parties Iraq's got quite a legacy there wasn't he his party no longer exists for a start no okay um so the people running the party now are much younger the people who were around at the time are all gone I don't think I can't think of anybody who would have been around all the time because if you were a minister or even somebody important in the party in 1979 yeah we're talking 40 years later now you would be at least in your 80s if not 90s if if not 100 so Nobody's around now so there's going to be a lot less pushback yeah because nobody cares now because whoever it was is gone dead so yeah we might get to somewhere at some point now um but at the time obviously there was a lot of people who had a lot to lose and somehow they managed to make everything die and disappear and I haven't heard of that story since the 80s no because nobody could look into it until now crazy crazy so we still don't know what happened it's clearly not a suicide even the doctor is paid by the government now say there's no way it's a suicide no that's pretty much what we know so what people think um in interviews now is he was kidnapped he was beaten up he was killed we don't know how and then it was dumped into the lake no well and for the French who are watching House of Cards maybe it's not so far from reality