Sixteen years after the death of Cédrika Provencher, the “prime suspect” of that tragic affair is eager to testify in his $10 million lawsuit against the Sûreté du Québec, his lawyer said this morning just before the civil trial began.
• Also read: Murder of Cédrika Provencher: Eyewitnesses rule out Jonathan Bettez
“ [Jonathan Bettez] I look forward to hearing the statement. Police do not want the hearings to be public. We want it, we want transparency. When the public has all the information, they can form their own opinion,” said Me Jessy Héroux at the Montreal courthouse this morning.
Accompanied by Jonathan Bettez and his parents, the lawyer insisted that his client had nothing to do with the disappearance and murder of little Cédrika, 9 years old, in Trois-Rivières in 2007. This affair sent shockwaves throughout Quebec, but despite the police investigation, no one was charged.
Jonathan Bettez at the Montreal Courthouse, January 22, 2024 Journal de Montréal, Michaël Nguyen
His bones were discovered in 2015, but again, the investigation did not result in any charges against anyone.
Police then launched an operation to trap Bettez, the main suspect in the case. However, if they had managed to arrest him in connection with child pornography, the charges would have been dropped.
The court then found that the police searches and searches had been conducted improperly.
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Bettez and his family said they were victims of police harassment and subsequently filed a $10 million civil lawsuit against the Sûreté du Québec and the state. According to her, the police did everything they could to convince the public that Jonathan Bettez was a murderer and a pedophile.
Note that Bettez refused to take a lie detector test from the start. Me Héroux explained this morning that this refusal is linked to the broken “relationship of trust” between Bettez and the police, as well as the fear that the stress associated with this type of exercise would distort the results.
More details to follow…
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