Sawt Falasteen - Frenchman denies killing wife in case that captivated France

"I still deny the accusations against me," Cedric Jubillar, 38, told the packed court in the southern town of Albi.

The body of his wife Delphine, 33, a nurse, has never been found in a mystery that has rarely been far from the headlines almost five years after her disappearance in rural southern France.

The trial, expected to last four weeks, got underway with a heavy media presence, with the defendant present in the glass-fronted dock dressed in a tracksuit top and jeans.

"There are all the ingredients for this to be of interest to everyone," said Alexandre Martin, one of Cedric Jubillar's two lawyers, pointing to "a nurse who disappears in the middle of the Covid crisis... the mystery, the absence of a body".

For Delphine's family members, the trial is generating "a lot of apprehension," said Mourad Battikh, who represents five of the nurse's relatives.

He said he hoped the trial "will allow some sort of truth to emerge, or at least push the accused to his limits in the face of his contradictions".

Louis, 11, the elder of the two children, neither of whom are taking part in the trial, is "in a state of stress", "waiting" and "hopes for the truth", said their lawyer Malika Chmani.

- 'Construct a story' -

Jubillar, a painter and plasterer held in detention since 2021, is accused of murdering his wife and mother of their two children in the town of Cagnac-les-Mines because he could not tolerate her leaving him for another man.

Throughout the probe, he denied killing Delphine, with his lawyers denouncing a "prejudiced investigation".

Investigating magistrates sent Jubillar to trial, maintaining that Delphine Jubillar had been killed during a dispute with her husband.

A pair of Delphine's glasses found broken and the testimony of the couple's son as well as screams heard by neighbours showed that an argument broke out, they said.

Cedric Jubillar's behaviour reinforced the investigators' suspicions -- he barely participated in the search for his missing wife and made threatening remarks in front of witnesses about what he might do to her if she were to leave him.

But investigators found no evidence of the murder itself, no traces of blood, no crime scene and no body.

"The prosecution is trying to construct a story, to create a motive, a character that would fit the actions he is accused of," said Martin, denouncing the "lack of evidence" in the case.

P.Tamimi--SF-PST