Top lawyer found dead

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”.