Lithuania-jailed French rocker appeals to serveactress murder rap in France

VILNIUS, July 2 (AFP) – French rock singer Bertrand Cantat, jailed in  Lithuania for beating to death his actress girlfriend Marie Trintignant, has launched a legal process to serve out the rest of his eight-year sentence in France, justice officials said Friday.

“Usually the procedure takes from one month to three, but this is a first case of handing of prisoner to France, so it could last longer, some two to four months,” Mindaukas Silkauskas, deputy director of International law department at the ministry told AFP.

Cantat’s lawyer Virginijus Pairtis said his client’s request asking to serve his sentence in France was handed to the ministry on June 28. “The procedure has started and we hope it will go smoothly,” he said.

Cantat, the 40-year-old lead singer of the group Noir Desir was found  guilty in March of causing the death of Trintignant, 41, following a fight in their Vilnius hotel room last July.

Trintignant died nearly a week later on August 1 of swelling to the brain.

Trintignant, the daughter of veteran French film star Jean-Louis Trintignant, had been in Vilnius to shoot a television movie about the French writer Colette, directed by her mother Nadine.

© AFP

Subject: French news