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A decide has begun listening to arguments on the Montreal courthouse the place Jonathan Bettez, the person police named as a suspect within the disappearance of nine-year-old Cédrika Provencher, and his household are suing the Sûreté du Québec and Quebec’s legal professional normal for damaging their reputations despite the fact that he has but to be charged with the murder.
On Monday, Jessy Héroux, a lawyer for Bettez and his household, advised reporters the decide within the case will first hear arguments on whether or not the proceedings needs to be public or not.
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“Most significantly, (Bettez and his mother and father) wish to be heard. They need the police to be held accountable for the way they carried out the investigation within the disappearance and the homicide of Cédrika Provencher,” Héroux mentioned.
“The police don’t want the proceedings to be held in public,” Héroux added. “We would like the proceedings to be public. We would like transparency. We imagine that if the general public has all the data, they may be capable to make up their very own minds.”
Cédrika disappeared in Trois Rivières on July 31, 2007. Her stays had been found by a hunter in St-Maurice in December 2015.
Bettez turned a suspect shortly after Provencher disappeared primarily based on eye-witness accounts of a person who claimed to be searching for his canine and who interacted with Cédrika earlier than she disappeared.
On the time, Bettez drove a automobile that matched descriptions given by witnesses. He additionally refused to bear a lie-detector take a look at.
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Bettez was investigated by the SQ however was not charged with Provencher’s demise. In 2016, he was charged with accessing and distributing baby pornography. The case alleged that Bettez used his household’s enterprise to obtain baby pornography over the web.
In 2018, a decide acquitted Bettez on all the prices and criticized the police investigation that produced them.
Bettez and his mother and father declare within the lawsuit that the kid pornography case has ruined their reputations and harmed the enterprise.
“What the household hopes for probably the most is that the police clarify how they carried out this investigation of the homicide and the disappearance of Cédrika Provencher. That’s the reason this lawsuit initially started. It’s been 16 years now that the investigation started and it concerned a mobilization with out precedent when it comes to sources, and what’s the outcome? I feel Quebecers deserve a solution and, above that, the household of Cédrika deserves a proof from the Sûreté du Québec,” Héroux mentioned on Monday.
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“They adopted him evening and day. They searched via his pc. They searched via his mobile (cellphone), adopted what he did on the web. They’d him on wiretaps. They interrogated him for 14 hours. They put strain on his household and his associates. How can they clarify that they haven’t discovered tangible components. I feel the reply is fairly evident.
“What Jonathan is hoping folks will ask themselves is: how would they really feel in the event that they had been adopted like he was adopted? In the event that they searched via their rubbish, listened to their calls and searched their computer systems.”
When requested by a reporter why his shopper refused to bear a polygraph take a look at, if solely to rule him out as a suspect, Héroux mentioned Bettez was appearing on the recommendation of a defence lawyer and provided the next: “What we all know is that polygraph assessments are affected by stress. The extra an individual is stressed the extra there’s a likelihood the take a look at can be non-conclusive or a false constructive.”
Bettez is predicted to testify within the civil trial.
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