In a verdict that has gripped a France already horrified by the brutality of the violent crime, a Paris court on Friday sentenced 27-year-old Dahbia Benkired, an Algerian illegally in France at the time of the murder, to life imprisonment without the possibility of early release for the rape, torture, and murder of 12-year-old Lola Daviet in 2022.
Benkired is the first woman ever to receive an “irreducible life sentence,” the harshest punishment available under French law. The ruling ensures she will spend the rest of her life behind bars, with no chance of parole.
The public prosecutor had urged the court to impose the maximum sentence, describing Benkired as “psychopathic but sane” and beyond rehabilitation. “Make no mistake—no drug treatment can fundamentally transform Ms. Benkired’s personality,” the prosecutor told the court. “When there is no illness, there is no treatment.”
The sentence places Benkired among a small and notorious group of criminals in France, including serial killer Michel Fourniret and jihadist Salah Abdeslam, one of the perpetrators of the 2015 Paris terror attacks.
Before the verdict was delivered, Benkired addressed the court briefly, saying only, “I ask for forgiveness. What I did is horrible. That’s all I have to say.”
The crime took place on October 14, 2022, in a residential building in northeastern Paris where Lola lived with her parents. CCTV footage showed the then 24-year-old Benkired approaching Lola shortly after the girl returned home from school.
Investigators found that Benkired lured Lola into an apartment her sister was subletting in the building. Over the next ninety minutes, she subjected the schoolgirl to a sexual assault, before attacking her with scissors and a box cutter. Lola was bound with duct tape, including around her head, causing death by asphyxiation.
Later that evening, Lola’s body was discovered in a plastic storage box in the courtyard of the building where her parents were caretakers and where Benkired’s sister lived—a discovery that sent shockwaves through France and sparked widespread political debate.
In the packed courtroom, Lola’s mother, Delphine Daviet, and her brother, Thibault, listened in silence as the verdict was read. The girl’s father, Johan Daviet, who had been vocal in seeking justice for his daughter, died last year at the age of 49 after falling into alcohol abuse in the wake of his daughter’s murder.
Reading the decision, the presiding judge spoke of the “extreme cruelty” of the acts, calling them “true torture.” He said the sentence reflected “the unspeakable psychological damage to the victim and her family in such violent and almost unspeakable circumstances.”
“We got what we wanted, we have restored the memory of Lola, thank you to justice,” Lola’s brother, Thibault Daviet, commented to CNEWS after the verdict.
The case has reignited fierce political debate in France over immigration and public safety. Benkired, who was under an OQTF (order to leave the country) at the time of the murder, has been cited as emblematic of the failures of French immigration control.
Éric Ciotti, president of the UDR party, which supports Rassemblement National, said on X, “An exceptional sentence commensurate with the monstrosity of her [Benkired’s] actions. May she rot in prison.”
A crowd gathered outside the courthouse waiting for the verdict chanted, “”Migrant assassins, complicit journalists!”
Marion Maréchal, chair of the Identités-Libertés party, also commented on X, speaking directly to the victim,
No punishment will ever bring you justice. Your innocence, your youth, your smile, your joy of living are priceless. You will forever remain the face of childhood shattered by imported barbarity, betrayed by a State that refuses to protect us.
