Teenage girl burned alive in France: ex-boyfriend sentenced to 18 years in prison

MISE À DAY

The ex-boyfriend of a teenage girl who was stabbed and burned in northern France in 2019 has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for her murder by a court overnight Friday to Saturday.  

Advocate General Loïc Abrial had requested the lifting of the excuse of minority of the accused, aged 17 at the time of the facts, allowing the maximum sentence to be increased from 20 to 30 years, but it was not retained. by the Assize Court for Minors in Oise, north of Paris.

According to him, the crime perpetrated in Creil (north) was “premeditated at every stage”.

< p>“18 years! That’s justice in France!” Tearfully launched Yasin, the brother of the young victim, Shaïna. After tense discussions with the accused, he felt unwell, leading to a suspension of the hearing. He was taken to the hospital.

To AFP, the father of Shaïna, who died at 15, said he was “disappointed with justice”.

“Justice does not care about violence against women,” said Me Negar Haeri, the family's lawyer. Between pre-trial detention and remissions, the accused “will be released in eight years”, she estimated.

In France, according to official figures, a woman dies every three days from violence of his or her spouse or ex-spouse.

The young man, who was a high school student with no criminal record at the time of the assassination, cried out his innocence throughout this open camera trial on Monday.

“Why? Why?”, he reacted to the statement of the verdict, after four hours of deliberation. And to invective the jurors: “You are wrong! I am innocent!”

His counsel, Me Elise Arfi and Me Adel Fares, pleaded for acquittal. Me Arfi judged that it was “too early” to decide on a possible appeal.

Treated “as a thing”

Shaina had been the victim two years earlier in her city of sexual assault, the images of which had been broadcast, exposing her, according to Me Haeri, to being treated “like a thing”.

Four other young people were sentenced on June 1 on appeal for these facts to sentences ranging from six months to two years in prison, suspended.

According to the investigation, Shaïna, described by her mother as “funny and smiling”, giving off “always good vibes”, was probably starting a pregnancy, which she attributed to the accused.

In two years , the teenager “experienced all gender violence: rape reclassified as sexual assault, physical and psychological violence, insults, acts of harassment”, in the face of which justice has “not always been up to it” , pointed out after her pleading on Friday Me Zoé Royaux, spokesperson for the Women's Foundation, civil party.

Opposite, the psychiatric expertise had pointed Thursday to the lack of empathy and the narcissism of the accused, according to the civil parties, who also explained that the young man could have been moved by the fear of losing the love of his parents, against a background of religious prohibition around sexuality.

The defense challenged this portrait, Me Fares sweeping away any link between his client's faith and the case.

The hearings were also marked by the change of heart or the absence of certain witnesses for the prosecution.

A friend of the accused claimed that he no longer remembered having seen blood on his clothes the day after the facts. And two ex-convicts, according to whom the young man boasted of having killed so as not to endorse the paternity of a “bastard”, did not show up.

Nothing to weaken the case for Me Haeri, who declared that the guilt of the accused is based on “super objective” elements.

His cell phone and that of Shaïna notably “limited” shortly before the facts near the crime shed , and burns on the young man's legs were confirmed by a medical expert.