Murder case French rocker wife denies interview

BORDEAUX, France, Feb 4 (AFP) – The estranged wife of a French rock singer being held in Lithuania for the death of a French actress denied Wednesday that she had spoken to a magazine which published comments it claimed she made about the case.

Khristina Cantat said she had had no contact with the magazine Gala “because I did not give them an interview and I never met any journalist.”

She made the denial in a telephone call to AFP from the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, where she was visiting her imprisoned spouse, Bertrand Cantat, the 39-year-old lead singer of the group Noir Desir.

In its weekly edition Wednesday, Gala published an article in which it quoted Khristina Cantat as saying her husband, from whom she was separated, had brought about the death of actress Marie Trintignant in a moment of “sudden madness caused by overwhelming love.”

It claimed she said Bertrand Cantat “wants to pay for what he did, but he doesn’t want to pay for acts he didn’t commit, like the punches he is accused of.”

The magazine on Wednesday stuck to its claims that Khristina Cantat had been interviewed.

Bertrand Cantat is being held in jail in the Lithuanian capital pending his homicide trial there for the death of Trintignant.

The 41-year-old actress died in August last year of swelling to the brain, a week after a heated argument with Cantat in her hotel room in Vilnius, where she was starring in a French tele-movie.

Subject: France news