Man confesses to being Marseille's serial rapist 10 months after DNA tests and ID parades failed to tell him apart from his twin brother
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Version 0 of 1. In a dramatic court-room confession, a 26-year-old man has admitted that he, and not his twin brother, committed a series of rapes and sexual assaults in Marseille. The tearful admission by Yoan Gomis finally removed all suspicion from his identical twin, Elvin. Both men had been held in preventive custody for 10 months in 2013 after DNA tests and identity parades failed to tell them apart. The case – one of the first of its kind in any country in the world – draws attention to the limits of DNA evidence. The genetic make-up of identical twins differs minutely but is hard to separate definitively. At first police believed both of the young men might have been involved in the wave of sexual attacks and robberies on women aged between 22 and 76. The twins shared a flat, shared clothes and shared the same Facebook page. They even shared mobile telephones. Both young men denied all involvement in two rapes, three attempted rapes, a sexual assault and a series of robberies in Marseille in the winter of 2012-13. Suspicion shifted to Yoan Gomis only when several victims said that his slight speech impediment, meant that his voice – not that of his brother – reminded them of their attacker. After he and his brother had spent 10 months in custody, Yoan Gomis finally admitted that he carried out the robberies but continued to deny the sexual attacks. Yoan Gomis' lawyer Bruno Rebstock, left, in the courthouse of Aix-en-Provence, with Yoan's twin brother, Elvin (Getty) On the first day of his five day trial in Aix-en-Provence this week, Yoan Gomis broke down and confessed to all the alleged crimes. “I am sorry for having lied all this time,” he told the court. “I was ashamed of myself. I just couldn’t admit it.” Despite the 10 months in custody that his brother forced him to endure, Elvin Gomis came to the hearing to support his twin and will give evidence later in the week. The presiding judge, Jean-Luc Tournier, asked Yoan Gomis why he had refused to remove suspicion from his brother for so long. “How is that possible?” Mr Tournier asked him. “You and your brother were so close.” “I was scared of how my mother, and other people, would look at me,” Yoan said. “I was disgusted with myself. I just could not confess.” The court was told that the brothers were the oldest of five children brought up by a single mother. Despite his speech defect, caused by partial deafness, Yoan had been an average pupil and a good athlete at school and had gone on to work in a series of delivery jobs. The six attacks took place in the entrance lobbies of blocks of flats in central Marseille or in the city’s troubled, multi-racial northern suburbs. In all cases, the attacker grabbed his victim from behind, forced – or tried to force – them to commit a sexual act and stole their purse and mobile phone. Police traced the brothers through images from closed circuit cameras. After a period of surveillance, both of them were arrested. Ordinary DNA tests suggested that one – or both – of the brothers had committed the sexual attacks. The victims failed, during identity parades, to tell the brothers apart. It was only after months of preventive custody that investigators realised that Yoan Gomis spoke with the speech impediment. After some weeks of further interrogation, Yoan Gomis admitted the robberies but denied the rapes and attempted rapes. His brother was then released. Emmanuel Kiehl, chief detective for the Bouches-du-Rhône department, said that the investigation had been “very unusual”. “There are ways of differentiating between the genetic imprints of identical twins but they are very laborious and can be conducted only by a couple of laboratories in France,” he said. A verdict and sentence are expected on Friday. |