Supermodel Katoucha Niane found dead
The family of African-born former supermodel Katoucha Niane have asked French judges to investigate their suspicions that she was murdered after her body was found in the River Seine nine days ago.
The 47-year-old Guinean-born ex-model, who at the height of her career was Yves Saint Laurent’s muse, had been missing since the night of February 1, when friends accompanied her home after a party at which considerable amounts of alcohol were consumed.
They dropped her off at the houseboat where she lived near Paris’ Alexandre III bridge.
Her handbag was later found in front of the door of the boat which was still locked.
Police divers conducted lengthy searches of the Seine without any results and it was a passerby who eventually spotted the model’s body near the Garigliano bridge in the capital’s 15th arrondissement on February 28.
French police initially said an autopsy showed no signs of foul play, pointing to the possibility that the could have fallen accidentally into the river.
The ex- model and mother of three died from "rapid submersion with no traces of violence," said a source close to the investigation. "She fell into the water and went straight to the bottom," he added.
However, her family have now filed a legal complaint with a French investigating magistrate, saying they suspect she was murdered.
Roland Dumas, former Socialist Foreign Minister under Francois Mitterrand and the former head of France’s highest legal body, the Constitutional Council, has agreed to represent the family as their lawyer.
He said the family had "serious doubts" about the French investigation following the discovery of Katoucha’s body and had requested a second autopsy.
"The family told me that Katoucha’s face was intact, which is troubling after a month in the water," he said. "Katoucha’s father has many questions" about the circumstances surrounding his daughter’s death.
"An investigating magistrate will automatically be designated on Monday," Mr Dumas added.
Tests are under way to determine whether the ex-model had been under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of her death.
In her autobiography, Dans Ma Chair (In My Flesh) published last year, Katoucha admitted that she had misused drugs as well as alcohol and had suffered from bouts of mental illness.
The daughter of the writer and historian Djibril Tamsir Niane, Katoucha was born in Conakry, the capital of the former French colony of Guinea, in 1960.
Her book describes her happy, privileged childhood, until the day, aged nine, that her French-educated mother told her they were going to the cinema to see the Beatles film Help!
Instead, her mother handed her over to an aunt to be circumcised according to ancestral custom, an agonising procedure which was carried out without anaesthetic and in filthy conditions.
She fled to Paris in 1980 after being sexually abused as a teenager and falling pregnant at the age of 17.
She quickly climbed into the top echelons of the Paris fashion world, becoming a star of the catwalks and succeeding the French Carribean model Mounia as Saint-Laurent’s "ebony princess".
After retiring from modelling in 1994, she launched her own clothing label Katoucha the following year and founded a campaign against genital mutilation, Katoucha pour la Lutte Contre L’Excision (KLPCE).
She travelled across Senegal visiting villages to try to persuade women to give up the practice.
Before she died she was planning to establish an orphanage there.
On Friday some 500 people, including Naomi Campbell and Pierre Bergé who represented Yves Saint Laurent, attended a memorial ceremony for the ex-model at the Grand Mosque in Paris.
Katoucha Niane, who has died aged 47, swanned along the Paris catwalk of Yves Saint Laurent's farewell show in 2002 in a formidable ensemble based on a Picasso painting.
She was his house taste incarnate, exactly like the figures in his sketches, ultra-slim, super tall, strong-shouldered and long-necked, with a head sculpted by Modigliani and a hauteur so awesome that, as jewellery designer Mickaël Kra remarked, she could have worn a rice sack with class.
Niane was a favourite of couturiers in Paris, Milan and Tokyo - the Japanese adored her, a comic book fantasy of a princess who was shockingly funny.
Katoucha Niane, model and campaigner, born 1960; died before February 29 2008
P.S , I had the honor to meet her in 2001 in Paris ... She was very kind to me,kissed me and we talked ... I am so sad for her and for her familly.. R.I.P
Je m'ennuierai de vous miel.
Repos dans la paix.
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