her ex-boyfriend sentenced to 18 years in prison – Liberation

It’s the end of almost four years of waiting and ordeal for Shaïna’s family. After five long and dense days of hearing, the assize court for minors in Beauvais (Oise) found the girl’s ex-boyfriend guilty of her murder, on the night of Friday to Saturday June 9. The 15-year-old girl, whom he had been dating for several weeks, had been found stabbed and burned alive, in 2019, in the shed of a allotment garden on the Rouher plateau, in Creil. In pre-trial detention for three years, the accused was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment.

Earlier in the afternoon, the prosecution had requested thirty years of criminal imprisonment against the one who has always claimed his innocence. The young man faced up to twenty years of criminal imprisonment – ​​the maximum for a minor – unless the court decided, as requested by the public prosecutor, to lift the “mitigation of responsibility” enjoyed by minors because of their age. But the jurors did not retain the lifting of the minority excuse required by the general counsel.

The young man’s lawyers, Me Elise Arfi and Adel Fares had pleaded “the acquittal”reported AFP, to defend their client “petrified, terrified”faced with the request for a sentence “longer than his whole life”. He was 17 at the material time, so the proceedings took place behind closed doors.

“Shaïna has experienced all gender violence”

Shaina’s body, charred and stabbed, was found on October 27, 2019, after two days of concern for her relatives. The day after a family dinner, the young girl’s room had remained empty: in her handbag that she had left, her mother had discovered a positive pregnancy test. This ten-day pregnancy was at the heart of the debates before the court, which could constitute a motive for the crime. Among the incriminating elements: the cell phone of the accused and that of Shaïna were bound near the shed shortly before the tragedy. Placed in pre-trial detention, the young man would also have boasted behind bars “prefer to take thirty years than to be the father of a bastard”.

On the last day of the trial, posters in memory of the victim were placed outside the court, reported a journalist present on site. You could read there “Shaïna was one of those who had the courage to file a complaint” ; “Shaïna has never been an easy girl”. 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 no “not always up to par”, told AFP Me Zoé Royaux, lawyer and spokesperson for the Women’s Foundation, who is a civil party. In 2017, the teenager was the victim of a gang rape by young people from the city, including her boyfriend at the time, who had trapped her in a disused clinic. The video, posted on social networks, had participated in bringing shame and infamy to the victim.

Triptych of horror

At 13, Shaïna then found herself with the label of “easy girl” stuck to her skin. Harassed, singled out, she had notably had to change schools. She had filed a complaint, without being taken seriously enough or protected by the institutions, her family has always lamented. Six years after the events, four young men were sentenced on appeal last week for “meeting sexual assault” to six months to two years in prison – heavier than at first instance.

There now remains one final part that must be judged in this triptych of horror of which Shaïna was the victim: in the spring of 2019, the young girl had filed a complaint again against this same ex-boyfriend, who had beaten her with friends to punish her for reporting him. The young man has been remanded to juvenile court and will therefore appear shortly for “aggravated violence and death threats”.