Bertrand Cantat

Bertrand Cantat (born 5 March 1964) is a French songwriter, singer, and musician known for being the former frontman of the rock band Noir Désir.

At the height of Noir Désir's success in the 1990s, Cantat was a prominent figure in French music.

Noir Désir is regarded "to have made the history of the French rock scene for three decades".

He was known for the quality of his lyrics, charisma, and live performances, often compared to Jim Morrison of the Doors.

In 1997, Cantat married Krisztina Rády, an art director of Hungarian descent, with whom he had two children; Milo, born in 1998, and Alice, born in 2003.

In 2003, he was proven guilty without a doubt and convicted of the murder ("murder with indirect intent" dolus eventualis) of French actress Marie Trintignant, which occurred in a hotel room in Vilnius.

In 2003, Cantat began an affair with French actress Marie Trintignant.

On 26 July of that year, Cantat and Trintignant got in a fight in a hotel room in Vilnius, Lithuania, following a dispute over a text message.

Seven hours later, Trintignant's brother called emergency services to the couple's Vilnius hotel room, as Trintignant had slipped into a deep coma.

She died of swelling to the brain several days later in hospital.

The post-mortem examination suggested that Cantat had inflicted 19 blows to Trintignant's head, causing irreversible brain damage.

In court, Cantat claimed he "slapped" Trintignant four times before putting her to bed.

He claimed he had flown into a jealous rage after she received a text message from her husband, Samuel Benchetrit.

Trintignant was 41 at the time of her death, and left four young sons.

French medical experts at the hearing confirmed Cantat's claim regarding the slapping, as well as his claim that he could not tell that Trintignant was dying.

His house was burned down in Moustey.

His spouse and his two children initially were supposed to be in the house at that time, but were in Bordeaux, instead.

In March 2004, Cantat was sentenced by Vilnius Regional Court under Article 129 of the Lithuanian Criminal Code to eight years in prison for murder, committed with indirect intent (dolus eventualis).

The verdict was at first appealed by Marie Trintignant's family, who believed that her killing warranted a harsher sentence, and later by Cantat, who wanted the higher court to reclassify his crime as manslaughter, and therefore lessen his sentence.

Both parties ultimately decided to cancel their appeals, which rendered final the original sentence of eight years.

At the request of his lawyers, Cantat was moved from the Lithuanian Lukiškės prison, to a prison near Muret, France, in September 2004.

Cantat served four years of his eight-year sentence in prison.

According to French law, after half of a prison sentence has been served, a criminal with good behavior can be released to serve the rest of his sentence on parole.

To some controversy, Cantat returned to Noir Désir after his release from prison in 2007, playing with the group until it disbanded in 2010.

He subsequently formed a musical duo with Pascal Humbert, calling themselves Détroit.

Cantat was born in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

The son of a navy officer, he spent his childhood in Le Havre.

His family moved when he was an adolescent to Bordeaux.

At the lycée Saint-Genès, he met Denis Barthe, Serge Teyssot-Gay, and Frédéric Vidalenc, who soon became members of his band.

Cantat was released from the French prison on parole in October 2007, after serving half of his sentence.

His early release aroused the anger of women's rights activists and the victim's parents, who had failed to persuade French President Nicolas Sarkozy and French judges to block his early release.

On the night of 10 January 2010, Cantat's former wife Krisztina Rády Cantat died by suicide.

At the time of her death, Bertrand Cantat was present in the house.

She was discovered by their children the following day.

Shortly before her death, Rády had complained of mental abuse by Cantat.

The physical abuse she complained of on the answering machine is that he threw some objects at her, but she never mentioned that he was assaulting her.

According to Cantat, Rády's parents had spent a week with him after the suicide.

Magistrates in Bordeaux investigated Cantat in connection with Rady's suicide, but ultimately decided not to press charges.

In October 2010, three months after his probational status of release was lifted and his sentence declared completed, Cantat resumed his musical career with a gig in Bordeaux.

His re-entry into the public eye vexed women's rights campaigners and victim support groups.