The body found in an unoccupied farm in Beaujolais, in the Rhône department, last week, has been identified as that of actor Marwan Berreni, who has been missing for more than two months, the prosecutor announced on Thursday, October 20. from Villefranche-sur-Saône, Laetitia Francart. “The genetic analyzes carried out (…) confirmed with great certainty that it was the body of Marwan Berreni,” she said.
On October 12, a hanged man and a bag containing the papers of the actor, known for playing lawyer Abdel Fedala in the soap opera Plus belle la vie, were found in an unoccupied farm in Corcelles-en-Beaujolais. The first results of the autopsy are “compatible with death by hanging,” noted the prosecutor, who added that “the investigations are continuing.”
A preliminary investigation for “disturbing disappearance”
In August, a preliminary investigation for “disturbing disappearance” was opened, the actor having no longer given any sign of life after a road accident in which he could have been involved. On the evening of August 3, a 37-year-old woman was struck by a vehicle in Mâcon near a nightclub. Suffering from multiple fractures, she was given a total incapacity to work for twenty-eight days. The driver of the vehicle fled.
Two days later, a 4 × 4 type car “likely to correspond to the vehicle involved in the accident” was discovered in the town of Fleurie, around fifteen kilometers further south, according to the Mâcon public prosecutor's office. According to sources close to the case, the car belonged to Marwan Berreni, based not far from there, in Fuissé.
For two months, the mystery remained unsolved. The actor's parents, who already lost their youngest son ten years ago, launched an appeal to their son in a letter published at the beginning of October by Libération. “You have the right to cry, but go back on your way, believe in yourself,” they wrote in particular. The filming of Plus belle la vie was already supposed to take place without Marwan Berreni. They will resume at the end of October, marking the return of the longest soap opera ever produced in France, less than a year after the broadcast of what was to be the last episode on France 3.
