Appeal Trial Delayed Again for Moroccan Man Accused in 2005 Toddler Murder Case

The criminal chamber of Tétouan has again postponed the fourth trial of Mounir Kiouh, 40, without however communicating on the date of the new appearance, reports L’Avenir. The victim’s family has decided to go to Morocco when the trial is set. In February, this trial had been postponed to March 3, 2022, to allow all the summoned parties to participate.

Mounir Kiouh was the new partner of Jennifer Devos, Théa’s mother. She was absent at the time of the events. In Belgium, the alleged murderer had been placed under an arrest warrant, then released after 18 months of preventive detention. He had appeared free before the Namur correctional court in June 2011, and had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for intentional violence resulting in death without the intention of giving it.

Dissatisfied, he had appealed. He will be sentenced in absentia to the same sentence on appeal, on December 22, 2011. Five days later, he fled to Morocco, thinking he had gotten away with it, because the kingdom does not extradite its nationals. But, according to article 707 of the Moroccan Code of Criminal Procedure, any Moroccan who has committed a crime abroad and is on the territory of the kingdom can be prosecuted there, provided that the judgment is not final. Knowing this opening, Jennifer Devos and the ex-in-laws went to Tétouan, Morocco, in 2019, to file a complaint. The MRE will be arrested, charged with the murder of a minor child, then incarcerated.

The Tétouan criminal chamber had sentenced Mounir Kiouh at the end of November to 20 years of criminal imprisonment for intentional violence resulting in death without the intention of giving it. During the trial, he "again denied the facts, arguing that the little girl had fallen from the mezzanine. Which is not logical given the findings of the investigators and the coroner," explained the Tangier lawyer, Fouad Harouach, who defended the interests of the victim’s family, with the bar president Brahim Semlali.