French ex-soldier, 39, is jailed for life for murdering girl, 8, who he snatched from wedding

A former French soldier who killed an eight-year-old girl after abducting her from a wedding celebration was today found guilty of her murder and sentenced to prison for life.

Nordahl Lelandais, 39, was on Friday told by judges sitting at the Isere Assizes in Grenoble, eastern France, that he would not be allowed an appeal, and that the minimum time he would spend in a cell was 22 years.

He had admitted abducting Maelys de Araujo from a wedding reception in the Alpine town of Pont-de-Beauvoisin, near Chambery, in August 2017, prompting a widespread search.

Lelandais had been invited to the party to supply cocaine to other guests in the early hours of the morning that he killed Maelys.

The court in Grenoble heard how he then asked Maëlys to join him in looking at his pet dogs in his car.

Lelandais’s Audi A3 was caught on video surveillance footage at 2.47am, with Maelys sitting next to him.

He returned to the wedding reception and showed little interest while everyone else was looking for Maelys.

Lelandais denied involvement in her death for six months until detectives managed to pinpoint a drop of Maelys’s blood in his car.

This finally prompted Lelandais to lead police to Maelys’s remains in February 2018.

Lelandais, who was working as a dog trainer at the time of his arrest, broke down in court as he described what happened.

He said he struck his victim ‘three or four times,’ but denied meaning to kill her, and then returned to the party alone.

Prosecutors had described the former soldier as an ‘absolute social danger and a ‘major criminal and predator’.

He was already serving a 20-year prison sentence for murdering another young soldier, Arthur Noyer, whom he met at a disco in April 2017.

Lelandais was also on trial for sexually abusing two young cousins — aged 4 and 6 — in their sleep.

Lelandais had admitted abducting Maelys de Araujo from a wedding reception in the Alpine town of Pont-de-Beauvoisin, near Chambery, in August 2017

Lelandais, who turned 39 on the day of the verdict, has also described by psychiatric experts as a psychopathic, narcissistic and pathological liar.

In a statement before the court, Lelandais said: ‘I know the families will never accept my excuses, but I present them with the greatest sincerity.’

Lelandais is suspected of being involved in up to 15 unsolved murder cases, and at one stage was linked to so called Alps Murders – the unsolved case of the Al-Hillis, from Claygate, Surrey.

Saad al-Hilli, his wife Iqbal and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, were gunned down in a forest layby near Annecy in 2012, along with a French cyclist called Sylvain Mollier.

The couple’s seven-year-old daughter, Zainab, was pistol whipped, while her sister Zeena, four, was later discovered hiding under her mother’s body inside the family BMW.

This was just 30 miles from the town of Chambery, from where Maelys was kidnapped by Lelandais.

Police have confirmed that they are still examining links between Lelandais and other unsolved murders, although there is currently no evidence that he killed the Al-Hillis or Mr Mollier.