Top lawyer found dead
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MAN WHO ‘MADE LEGAL PROCEDURE A WEAPON FOR JUSTICE’ THOUGHT TO HAVE COMMITTED SUICIDE OFF BRITTANY ISLAND FRANCE’S most powerful lawyer, Olivier Metzner, has been found dead in the sea off
his private island in Brittany. He had left a suicide note in his house on Boëdic Island in the Golfe de Morbihan. A post-mortem will be held today. Metzner, 63, last month defended Swiss
oil company Vitol over charges of breaking the UN embargo in Saddam Hussein's Iraq and has previously defended rogue Société Générale trader Jerome Kerviel, ex-prime minister Dominique
de Villepin, former Panama dictator Manuel Noriega and Continental Airlines (over the Concorde crash). Rarely seen without his trademark giant cigar, he was known for his ability to pick
holes in legal procedures. _GQ_ magazine last year called him the “most powerful lawyer in France”. He had an ability to quickly understand extremely complex financial cases and became the
lawyer of choice for big business and major crime figures. Head of the Paris bar Christiane Féral-Schuhl called him “one of the greatest case lawyers of our bar” and said he “knew how to
make legal procedure a weapon for justice”. A bachelor, he had recently put his island up for sale saying he had “more interesting plans” but also told _Le Figaro_ he planned “to spend more
time at sea”.