Case of the Mediator: the first hearing in Nanterre, without the judge Prevost-Desprez

Written by Sandeep Nehra

The presiding judge in Nanterre, Jean-Michel Hayat, will chair a hearing on Monday and Tuesday aimed at preparing the criminal trial for aggravated fraud in the case of the Mediator, Judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez threatened with disciplinary action having been withdrawn.

This hearing will be held at 9:30, is to record, if any, new direct quotes, to set a hearing schedule and list of parts and people that the lawyers intend to cite.

It will prepare the long-awaited trial, perhaps in spring 2012.

But Friday, the lawyer for Servier, Hervé Temime, asked the Court of Cassation consolidation of proceedings of Nanterre and Paris for “aggravated deception” in the case of the Mediator.

The correctional court of Nanterre receives several direct quotes from charges of “aggravated deception” to include the group Servier, its founder, Jacques Servier, 88, and the company that marketed the Biopharma Mediator. In Paris, three judges investigating the facts of “aggravated deception” “fraud” and “manslaughter”.

Jacques Servier and his eponymous group were indicted Sept. 23 for “aggravated deception” and “fraud” in the pane educated in Paris.

Five million people have taken the Mediator from 1976 to 2009, when it was banned. This antidiabetic, widely prescribed as an appetite suppressant, has between 500 and 2,000 deaths, according to several studies.

At the hearings procedure in Nanterre, conspicuously absent is the president of Branch 15 of the Criminal Court, Isabelle Prevost-Desprez, which folded in mid-September at the request of his superiors not to preside over the debate on Monday and Tuesday .

The President of the High Court, Mr Hayat, had assured that it was not a “sanction” or a “divestment”. This suspension was to “preserve litigants antagonism recurring Nanterre court,” explained the president Hayat. An application considered “clumsy” and “no effect” on the procedure by several lawyers interviewed by the AFP file.

Ms. Prevost-Desprez is threatened with disciplinary action after Nicolas Sarkozy blamed for illegal political funding and delivered a fierce charge against the floor of Nanterre, led by the prosecutor Philippe Courroye, in a book of testimonies by journalists of the World ( “Sarko kill me”).

Judge Prevost-Desprez was heard Sept. 20 by a judge in Bordeaux, which is investigating the case Bettencourt, about stories she claims to have collected off the minutes on the campaign financing of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.