After more than 20 years on the run, they confessed to the gruesome murders in France, living under false identities.

Two people on Monday After more than two decades on the run, they pleaded guilty to the brutal murder of the Frenchman in 2003.

The lifeless body of salesman Philippe Charuel was found in February 2003 in a canal in Gonderville, eastern France.

According to the investigation, two young prostitutes reported harassing Charuel on the evening of February 19, 2023, when they left a bar near the train station in Nancy.

He was then taken to a black BMW by two men later identified as Christian Rad and Vasyl Ostas.

After nearly 22 years in hiding, according to Spanish police, the two fugitives who participated in the beating were released in 2011. They were captured near Barcelona in August 2023.

They lived in Catalonia for 20 years under false identities. According to Le ParisienRad was a father of two who worked as an assistant in a luxury hotel, while Ostas was a security guard.

Eleanor Dupleix, lawyer for Ostas; He said to France 3Her client is still not charged.

“What they say at trial, we’ll get each side’s version,” Dupleix said.

The two men were sentenced in absentia in 2011 to 30 and 26 years in prison.

Ostas, 52, a Romanian national, told the court he “accepted” the facts and was “sorry”.

“I hit him but I didn’t want him to die,” he said of Charuel. “I apologize to the victim’s family” and “from the French community.”

Ostas’ nephew, Rad, 40, said he hit the victim “with my hands” in the presence of the two women and his uncle.

“I saw a lot of violence. It was shocking to me. I was thinking about (the Charuel family) all evening,” he said.

Charuel is described as “a man without a past”; He frequented nightclubs, had recently separated from his wife, and was the father of a young child.

The body was found with 20 injuries to the abdomen, several broken ribs and “numerous cuts and bruises” to the face, including a broken jaw and missing teeth, presiding judge Therese Tattari said.

The verdict is expected next Friday.