The man confused with Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes released by the Scottish police

The conversation lasted only a few seconds. The words are dry: "I have nothing to say, forget me. The man answering the phone has just experienced a scenario worthy of a bad movie. For almost 24 hours, this sexagenarian who poses with a good-natured look on his Facebook profile picture was held in the cells of the Scottish police. At the airport in the first place, then in Glasgow Central Station, an austere red brick building on Helen Street, an impersonal boulevard and just as sinister as the police hotel.

Especially, for nearly 24 hours, Guy J., a peaceful 69-year-old pensioner, found himself in the shoes of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes, the most wanted man in France, a former salesman who prevents the police from sleeping. since April 21, 2011 and the discovery of the corpses of his wife and four children under the terrace of a pavilion of Nantes (Loire-Atlantique).

A pithy statement

Around 6 pm on Saturday, October 12, the local police ended, in a few pithy lines, a suspense stale early in the morning. "On Friday, October 11, 2019, a man was arrested at Glasgow Airport as a result of information provided to the police. He was detained in custody under a European arrest warrant issued by the French authorities, the statement said. Investigations have been conducted to confirm the identity of the man. Following the results of these tests, it was confirmed that the arrested man is not the man suspected of crimes in France. The man has since been released. "

Not a word on the other hand, to explain this incredible failure, this track that flies away as quickly as it arose and which put dozens of French police in trance on Friday. A failure that especially made a very unpleasant moment to Guy J., dumb, stunned and unable even to deny the identity that was lent him during the first hours of his custody.

It must be said that when he takes off for Glasgow, Friday noon, this former employee of Renault who lives in a pavilion in Limay (Yvelines), is a man without stories. He left to join his Scottish companion, with whom he settled in the coastal town of Dunoon a few years ago. But everything does not go as planned.

No explanation

At the exit of the plane, while his wife is waiting in the airport hall, the sexagenarian is set aside. Border police investigators are fingerprinting their fingerprints, which "match" with those of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes, according to the information that the Scottish police will transmit a little later to their French counterparts.

Twenty-four hours later, total backpedaling. The correspondence is not perfect, and has only been done with a few points of comparison …

Contacted this Saturday, the Glasgow police have long suggested that she would hold a press conference to explain how Guy J. could be confused with the most wanted man in France.

Several police officers even assured the twenty or so journalists who crouched in front of the police station that the French investigators dispatched to Glasgow in emergency were also going to express themselves. But nothing, except this release that closes this incredible Scottish chapter of the case of Dupont de Ligonnes.

"What happened to this poor man … it's crazy"

In just a few hours, however, some Scots have become passionate about this fact they had never heard of. "Of course, it's funny to say that a man you've been looking for for years is stopped at home," slipped, a smile of pride on the corner of the lips, a police officer at the airport … before the DNA test performed by them authorities do not put the false suspect totally out of the question.

Rangers jersey on the back, like dozens of other residents of this Glasgow district in this friendly match day against Liverpool, Mike finds "this crazy story. I had never heard of this horrible crime committed in France, but for a few hours, we thought that this incredible affair would end with us! And what happened to this poor man … it's crazy. "

By taking an interest in the Dupont de Ligonnes affair, dozens of Britons also plunged for a time into the affair of Lord Lucan, an English nobleman who died forever in 1974, after the murder of his children's nanny. . "This is our Dupont de Ligonnes to us, breathes a Scottish photographer present this Saturday in front of the Glasgow police station. These are fascinating stories, and even if no one had heard of this Frenchman before Friday, all the people who are interested in criminal matters now want to know where he is! "