The ex-boyfriend of a teenager who was stabbed and burned to death in northern France in 2019 was sentenced to 18 years in prison by a court on Friday night for murder.
• Also read: France: The trial of the ex-boyfriend of a stabbed and burned alive teenager begins
Advocate General Loïc Abrial had asked for the defendant, who was 17 at the time of the crime, to have his plea of minors overturned, which would allow the maximum sentence to be increased from 20 to 30 years, but was not upheld by the Assizes Miners of Oise, north of Paris.
According to him, the crime committed in Creil (North) “was premeditated at every stage”.
“18 years! This is justice in France!” With tears, Yasin, the brother of the young victim, Shaïna, expressed the situation. After tense discussions with the accused, he felt uncomfortable, which led to a stay of the trial. He was taken to the hospital.
Shaïna’s father, who died aged 15, told AFP that he was “disappointed with justice”.
“The judiciary doesn’t care about violence against women,” said Me Negar Haeri, the family’s lawyer. Between pre-trial detention and the decree, the accused would be “released in eight years,” she estimated.
In France, according to official figures, a woman dies every three days as a result of violence by her spouse or ex-spouse.
The young man, who was a high school student at the time of the attack and had no criminal record, pleaded his innocence during Monday’s closed trial.
“For what? Why?” he responded to the verdict after four hours of deliberation. And to berate the jury: “You’re wrong! I’m innocent!”
His lawyers, Elise Arfi and Adel Fares, pleaded for acquittal. Me Arfi ruled that it was “too early” to decide on a possible appeal.
Treated “like a thing”.
Shaïna had been the victim of sexual assault in her town two years earlier, the images of which had been broadcast, requiring her to be treated “like a thing,” according to Me Haeri.
On June 1, four other young people were sentenced on appeal to prison terms of between six months and two years based on these facts.
According to the investigation, Shaïna, who was described by her mother as “funny and smiling” and “always exuded a good mood”, was probably in the early stages of pregnancy, which she attributed to the defendant.
In two years, the teenager “experienced all gender-based violence: rape, which was classified as sexual assault, physical and psychological violence, insults, acts of harassment,” in the face of which justice “did not always come first,” she later emphasized in her plea Friday Me Zoé Royaux, spokeswoman for the Women’s Foundation, Civic Party.
In contrast, Thursday’s psychiatric report had pointed to a lack of empathy and the defendant’s narcissism, according to the Civil Party, which also said the young man may have been moved by fear of losing his parents’ love, against a background of religious taboos around about sexuality.
The defense challenged this portrait, and Me Fares denied any connection between his client’s beliefs and the case.
The hearings were also marked by the resignation or absence of certain prosecution witnesses.
A friend of the accused said he could not remember seeing blood on his clothing the day after the incident. And two ex-convicts, according to which the young man boasted that he killed in order not to confirm the paternity of a “bastard”, did not appear.
Not enough to soften the case for Me Haeri, who stated the defendant’s guilt rested on “superobjective” elements.
His mobile phone and Shaïna’s were clearly “restricted” just before the incident near the crime shed and burns on the young man’s legs were confirmed by a medical examiner.