Father of Frenchwoman killed in Salta in 2011 to speak with prosecutors

The father of one of two French women murdered in northwest Argentina in 2011 is in the country to appear before the local courts as part of a reopened investigation.

Jean-Michel Bouvier, the father of Cassandre Bouvier, will testify on Monday and Tuesday in Salta Province before the prosecutors in charge of the case, he confirmed to reporters.

He described the development as “a favourable sign,” referring to the investigation reopened last year.

In recent years, Bouvier has branded the investigation a “fiasco” and a “police and judicial farce.”

“They acknowledge that the initial investigation was, to put it politely, badly carried out,” Bouvier said.

The bodies of students Cassandre Bouvier and Houria Moumni, then aged 29 and 24 respectively, were found in July 2011 in the Quebrada de San Lorenzo nature reserve.

In February 2016, two men were sentenced to life imprisonment for the killings: Gustavo Lasi, an occasional tour-guide in the park, and Santos Clemente Vera, a gardener.

However, during trials into the killings – first in 2014 and later before the appeals court – it became clear that the police investigation had been careless and that investigators had quickly abandoned other leads and suspects.

According to Bouvier, DNA traces at the time suggested that other people had been involved in the crimes.

In December 2023, after 10 years in jail, Vera was released when the Supreme Court annulled his conviction due to procedural irregularities.

At the beginning of 2025, Salta’s attorney general reopened the investigation.

As part of that process, Bouvier will be questioned by prosecutors. He said he intends to raise doubts before magistrates about the original investigation, including issues related to the autopsies as well as new evidence and the broader “context” surrounding the case at the time.

In September, Bouvier filed a complaint in Paris asking French courts to investigate Cassandre’s murder.

“I’m about to turn 78, I have various health problems … but I carry on,” he said, adding that he continues “with tenacity and perseverance” in his goal of “helping to find those responsible, and those who helped them evade justice.”

– TIMES/AFP