A French prosecutor on Friday, October 24th, urged the maximum possible sentence for an Algerian woman accused of raping, torturing, and murdering a schoolgirl in Paris in 2022. Investigators said Dahbia Benkired raped and tortured the girl before suffocating her to death.
Benkired is standing trial for killing 12-year-old Lola Daviet in the French capital in 2022, in a case that horrified the country, especially in light of the fact that Benkired was an illegal immigrant under an OQTF (order to leave the country).
Benkired, now aged 27, was detained after Daviet went missing in the northeast of Paris. The girl’s body was later found in a trunk in the lobby of the building where her father and mother worked as caretakers.
The public prosecutor argued Benkired should be handed an “irreducible life sentence,” the harshest penalty under the French penal code, which does not allow for parole or a reduction in sentence. The sentence must reflect “the extreme gravity” of the crimes committed, their cruelty, and the suffering they caused her family, he said.
The accused apologised for her “horrible actions” when her trial opened last week. But three psychiatric experts said they had noted “psychopathic tendencies” in the defendant and did not think she suffered from any mental health condition that could be cured.
