France court orders retrial of Chilean over alleged murder of ex-girlfriend

France's top court on Wednesday ordered a retrial of a Chilean accused of killing his Japanese ex-girlfriend in the eastern city of Besancon in 2016, ruling that investigators had withheld evidence from his defence team.

A lower court had sentenced Nicolas Zepeda in April 2022 to 28 years for killing Narumi Kurosaki, then aged 21, in December 2016.

An appeals court upheld that verdict in December 2023.

The Court of Cassation, the highest appeals court in France, said the Chilean would not be released from jail, but tried a third time over the murder.

It said it ordered the retrial because one of the investigators had used slides in their presentation to the court not previously submitted to defence lawyers.

Kurosaki's body has never been found and prosecutors said all the evidence pointed to him being the premeditated killer of the scholarship student.

Zepeda has repeatedly claimed he is innocent.

Kurosaki arrived in Besancon in the summer of 2016 to learn French. She was last seen December 4.

Zepeda, with whom she had broken up two months earlier, was the last person to see her alive.

During the appeals trial, the Chilean, speaking excellent French, often appeared to have difficulty explaining many points of the case, conceding that he had lied about details.

© Agence France-Presse