A girl missing, a mother found dead, a suspected Tunisian father: an investigation has been launched in France into the voluntary killing by his spouse and kidnapping of a minor against the man suspected of killing his partner and then kidnapping his eight-year-old daughter, found with him in Italy on Thursday.
The father who abducted his eight-year-old daughter Malek in northern France on Wednesday was arrested in Italy on Thursday and the child was found safe with him, we learned from a source familiar with the case.
A kidnapping alert was issued Wednesday night, 24 hours after she disappeared in the north of the country, in a bid to locate the girl and her father, Jamel Y., but was lifted on Thursday.
According to prosecutors, Dunkirk police discovered the lifeless body of Jamel Y’s companion Sonia M. on Wednesday after she was alerted by her mother, who was “concerned” at her silence.
The coroner found “multiple bruises” on his body. An autopsy was ordered.
According to the public prosecutor’s press release, three minor children were in the mother’s house. But “a fourth child, Malek Y., aged 8, from a first marriage of Jamel Y., was nowhere to be found and was probably taken by her father” at age 40.
According to a source close to the investigation, the man in question is a Tunisian national who is known to the police and the judiciary. The 29-year-old mother showed signs of strangulation in addition to bruises, the source added, adding that the pair have “experienced arguments” in the past.
In front of the family building, in a popular area of Dunkirk, neighbors confirm the hypothesis that a man is violent towards his companion.
“He wasn’t a nice person, he was someone who hit her regularly,” says a neighbor, Johanna Francke. The father was “very friendly on the outside” but “I saw him raise his hand,” says another neighbor, Delphine Vasseur, 53. “There was constant fighting and shouting,” she adds, saying police came to the couple’s home “regularly.”
A next-door neighbor, Sylvia, 18, says the victim came to her the night of the incident to tell her: “If you hear people screaming for help, you can call the police.”
“Around 9:30 she rang the bell, we opened the door and she asked for a call. My roommate gave her cell phone. She couldn’t find the number she was looking for.
“Around one o’clock in the morning I heard (the wanted man) yelling at this lady,” his roommate Mathilde continues. “He said to him, ‘Go out, go out’.”
“After that there was no sound or picture until 2 p.m. when we saw the police arrive and explain what had happened,” she said.
On the apartment door, the type of crime is stated on a police seal: “Murder”.
In France, according to official figures, a woman dies every three days as a result of violence by her spouse or ex-spouse.
The latest kidnapping alert is dated May 25th and concerned 10-year-old little Eya, who was kidnapped by her father and an accomplice in the Alps and found in Denmark around thirty hours later.
The Abduction Alert plan is a comprehensive and immediate alert system deployed to assist in the search for a child who is suspected of being abducted. It was adopted in France in February 2006 and triggered around thirty times.