A 34-YEAR-OLD lawyer walked into a fashionable restaurant in the centre of Toulouse on Monday night, ordered a glass of champagne, took one sip and then shot himself.
Just over an hour earlier, another lawyer had been shot three times, and seriously wounded, by someone who had lain in wait for him outside his office, and it did not take police long to establish a link between the two incidents. The wife of the man who committed suicide, Maitre Jean-Charles Ruffie, was also a lawyer who worked for the victim of the earlier attack, Maitre Patrick Abgrall, 47. Police believe that Mr Ruffie suspected - perhaps wrongly - that his wife was having an affair with Mr Abgrall.
Monique Brocard, head of the Toulouse bar association, commented: "The fact that those involved are lawyers is irrelevant. Personal passions exist beneath lawyers' robes."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments