The China Mail - French court gives Algerian woman life sentence for murdering schoolgirl

Dahbia Benkired was found guilty of killing 12-year-old Lola Daviet in the French capital in 2022, in a case that horrified the country and sparked anti-immigration fervour 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.

In the verdict, the presiding judge cited the "extreme cruelty of the criminal acts", describing them as "true torture".

"In determining the appropriate sentence, the court took into account the unspeakable psychological damage to the victim and her family in such violent and almost unspeakable circumstances," he said.

The public prosecutor had argued earlier in the day Benkired should be handed an "irreducible life sentence", the harshest penalty under the French penal code, and one 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.

- 'Psychopathic' -

Benkired 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.

Conservative and far-right politicians seized on the case to call for better immigration law enforcement, after Benkired was found to have overstayed a student visa and failed to comply with a notice to leave France.

The victim's mother has urged politicians to stop exploiting her daughter's death.

P.Deng--ThChM