Appeal: Adriano Araujo da Silva.

Adriano Araujo da Silva: Claimed police forced him to confess. Photo: Alastair Miller

NANTERRE: A Frenchman has lost his appeal to overturn his 30-year jail sentence for murdering Australian student Jeannette O'Keefe, who was beaten, strangled and dumped in a car park outside Paris.

Brazilian-born Adriano Araujo Da Silva, 37, was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison in January last year for the murder 11 years earlier of 28-year-old Jeannette O'Keefe.

Ms O'Keefe's body was found rolled up in a sleeping bag in a parking lot in the Paris suburb of Les Mureaux on January 2, 2001 after a series of events left her alone and without a bed for the night on New Year's Eve.

Jeanette O'Keefe ... murdered in 2001.

Jeanette O'Keefe: Murdered in 2001. Photo: Penny Stephens

Araujo Da Silva insisted he was innocent throughout the appeal hearing in the Paris suburb of Nanterre that began on Tuesday. But the court rejected his appeal and upheld the original sentence.

Araujo Da Silva had confessed to the crime twice before retracting his testimony, saying he had been pressured by police.

He admitted to taking Ms O'Keefe home and having an argument with her, but insisting she left unharmed. Ms O'Keefe's four brothers and sisters, who were civil plaintiffs in the case, were in court for the start of the appeal.

"We feel sick to the stomach to have to go through this again but we do it for Jeanette," her sister Denise, 43, told AFP.

"Even after he killed my sister, he still has lied. I think he'll make up any story that he thinks will get him out of jail."

Araujo Da Silva said he had met O'Keefe on the Champs Elysees in Paris on New Year's Eve and taken her to his home in Les Mureaux, where her body was found three days later.


He confessed to the killing when detained by police, saying he had beaten Ms O'Keefe and strangled her to death when she refused to have sex with him a second time and threatened to call police.

An autopsy found she had been struck by at least 13 blows before being strangled to death.

Araujo Da Silva told the court on Tuesday he had only confessed under pressure from police, who had said he would receive a lighter sentence if he admitted to the crime.

"I was tricked and manipulated during questioning," he said.