A French prosecutor on Friday, October 24, urged the maximum sentence for an Algerian woman accused of raping, torturing and murdering a schoolgirl in Paris in 2022. Dahbia Benkired is standing trial for killing 12-year-old Lola Daviet in the French capital in 2022, in a case that horrified the country and sparked anti-immigration fervor because the woman did not have the right to be in France.
Benkired, now aged 27, was detained after Daviet went missing in the northeast of Paris, her body then 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.
Investigators said Benkired raped and tortured the girl before suffocating her to death. The accused apologized 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.
