Leonard

Léonard Koné was the secondary antagonist of the first and second parts of Lupin. He was portrayed by Adama Niane.

Léonard was employed as an assassin by Hubert Pellegrini, and was responsible for the murders of Babakar Diop and Fabienne Bériot as well as the kidnapping of Raoul Diop.

1995
Léonard is in prison for attempted murder. He is briefly seen by Assane when the latter goes to visit Babakar in prison. Shortly afterward, the guards discover Babakar hanging from a noose inside his cell. Although the death is initially ruled a suicide, it was in fact Léonard who murdered Babakar at the instructions of Hubert Pellegrini.

Part 1
After Hubert gives his press conference about the contents of the Malaysia tape, Léonard follows Fabienne Bériot (who had asked Hubert a pointed question about his responsibility for the Kuala Lumpur terror attack) as she is walking home. Fabienne believes that she has successfully evaded Léonard; however, he manages to find out where she lives.



When Hubert orders Léonard to track Assane down after the latter's failed appearance on The Other Edition, he goes to Fabienne's home, telling her that he will kill her if she does not give up Assane's location. After Fabienne refuses to do so, Léonard murders her and stages her death as a suicide by hanging, mirroring the manner in which the prison guards had found Babakar in 1995.

When Assane leaves his house on the morning of December 11th to go pick up Claire and Raoul, Léonard follows him. A chase ensues, during which Léonard and Assane sprint up the levels of a parking garage. Assane escapes by hiding from Léonard and then hopping across several roofs until Léonard has no hope of catching him.



Léonard is, however, able to follow Assane, Claire and Raoul onto the train to Le Havre. He calls Hubert and asks him what he is expected to do; Hubert tells him to kill Assane but to leave Claire and Raoul alone. Meanwhile, Assane notices Léonard's presence in the background of a photo that Claire takes on the train. He gets up and begins loudly singing "Happy Birthday" to Raoul, looking pointedly at Léonard to alert him that he knows he is there. When Assane tells Claire that he is going to get drinks and leaves their railcar, Léonard follows him through the train. Upon reaching the final railcar, Léonard is surprised when he is attacked by Assane, who has been hiding inside a storage closet. The two begin to fight; Assane, being the significantly larger of the two, overpowers Léonard easily and locks him inside the room.

Later, however, Léonard escapes, and after discreetly demonstrating to Assane that he is carrying a gun, he sits down next to Raoul, asking him if he and his parents are going to the Arsène Lupin festival in Étretat; Raoul says that they are. As the train nears the station, Assane urges Claire and Raoul to get off ahead of him. After they have left, Assane is told by Léonard that the two of them are going to disembark quietly. As soon as the pair exit the train, several police officers rush towards them and arrest Léonard, into whose pocket Assane has placed one of the gems from Marie-Antoinette's necklace in order to frame him for being "Paul Sernine," the Louvre thief.



However, the police let Léonard go after they learn that he has a license to carry his firearm, that he has a strong alibi for the time of the break-in, and that he doesn't resemble facial reconstructions made of Sernine. Léonard makes his way to Étretat, where he kidnaps Raoul from the beach while Assane's and Claire's backs are turned, throws him into the back seat of a BMW and drives away.

Part 2


Once outside of Étretat, Léonard tries to call Hubert, but struggles with the lack of reception in the Normandy countryside. He puts Raoul, now bound and gagged, into the trunk of the car so that he can make a stop in the approaching town of Bourneville. Upon pulling into the town center, Léonard exits the car and tells Raoul, still locked in the trunk, that if he makes any noise, he will kill him. Léonard experiences hostility from the people of Bourneville, and is forced to buy a soft drink in order to make a phone call from a pub. Eventually, he manages to contact Hubert, who is shocked by what Léonard has done and reaffirms that he wanted Assane, not Raoul. Hubert orders Léonard to fix his mistake.

Léonard leaves the pub and discreetly slips the soft drink to Raoul. As he gets into his car, Assane and Youssef Guédira arrive on the scene. Léonard waits until they have entered the pub and speeds off. Assane and Guédira give chase, but Léonard manages to stay ahead of them and drives to an abandoned hunting lodge. He forcefully drags Raoul into the house and ties him to a chair.



Aware that Assane and Guédira will find him eventually, Léonard takes Raoul’s phone and sends a text to Assane, pretending to be Raoul and claiming that he has escaped. When Assane responds with an incorrect plot point from an Arsène Lupin book, Léonard replies in a way that indicates that he is unaware of the error, allowing Assane to deduce the true identity of the person he is in contact with.

Assane marches onto a small field in front of the house and calls Raoul’s phone. Léonard answers and tells Assane that if he wants Raoul, he will need to come and get him. Night falls and Léonard, who has by this point locked Raoul back in the trunk of the car, is still waiting for Assane, clutching a hunting rifle. When Assane does finally enter, Léonard is unable to find him in time to shoot him, and the two begin a physical altercation that ends with Assane throwing Léonard out of one of the windows of the mansion.



Injured but alive, Léonard manages to stand up. He is enraged by his failure to capture Assane and loses all sense of caution, dousing his car in gasoline and setting it alight. The vehicle quickly goes up in flames, with Raoul still locked inside, and Léonard texts Assane the message “next time try the car.” Meanwhile, Guédira, having escaped from Assane’s bindings, sees what has happened and hears Raoul yelling. He manages to rescue Raoul, and the two run away from the burning wreckage. Léonard shoots at them with his hunting rifle, but is unable to stop them from driving away. After Guédira and Raoul have left, Léonard calls Hubert and explains the situation.

Some time later, Léonard meets with Hubert and Pascal Oblet. Hubert tells Léonard that he wants Assane to be taken care of once and for all. Unbeknownst to Léonard, Hubert has ordered his own death (for having made so many unforced errors in dealing with Assane's family) and intends to frame Assane for it.



Having been made aware of the address of the shop of Benjamin Ferel, Léonard tails him to Assane’s apartment. After Benjamin leaves, Léonard quietly enters and prepares to shoot Assane, who is happily making dinner while blasting a vinyl record of the Four Tops' "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" on his turntable. Before he can do the deed, however, Pascal enters, strangles Léonard to death, and quickly leaves before calling the police.

When Léonard’s body is discovered, Assane is suspected of the murder and quickly makes headlines as the most wanted criminal in France.

Personality and relationships


Léonard was a scrappy and ruthless individual, who was skilled at tailing people and intimidating or killing them. Although he was small in physical size, he made up for this with his strong observational ability as well as his agility. Léonard’s calling cards as a murderer were hangings staged to look like suicides; he used this method in dealing with both Babakar Diop and Fabienne Bériot. Surprisingly, Léonard was shown to be even more unscrupulous than Hubert Pellegrini. He was entirely comfortable with hurting and, seemingly in a fit of rage, even attempting to kill Raoul, despite Hubert’s explicit instructions not to harm the teenager.

Although one of Léonard’s major strengths was his ability to improvise, this ultimately proved to be his downfall when Hubert grew irritated by his tendency to go off-plan. Eventually, Hubert came to see Léonard as a loose cannon who was hindering him; thus, he ordered Pascal Oblet to kill Léonard while simultaneously framing Assane for the crime.

Léonard’s criminal history dated back to at least 1995, when he was arrested for an attempted murder. Like Assane, Léonard experienced racism frequently; unlike Assane, however, his crimes did not seem to be motivated by a strong sense of injustice.

Appearances

 * Part One


 * Chapter 1
 * Chapter 4
 * Chapter 5


 * Part Two


 * Chapter 6
 * Chapter 7
 * Chapter 9

Quotes
"Don’t be scared; your father’s on his way. I’ll take care of him. And then I’ll take care of you."

- Léonard threatens Raoul

Trivia

 * According to his police file, Léonard is of Antillean descent.
 * Léonard, Hubert and Anne Pellegrini are the only characters to be portrayed by the same actors in the 1995 flashbacks and the present day.
 * Léonard's actor, Adama Niane, died in January 2023. Many of the show's cast members paid tribute to him on social media.