Double Homicide in Alès: Man Confesses to Killing Wife and Sister-in-Law

The events took place on Friday at the home of the defendant’s wife, in Les Salles-du-Gardon near Alès. After giving "several fatal knife blows" to his sister-in-law, whom he blamed for an alleged "influence", the Moroccan then inflicted a blow to the throat of his wife, causing her death.

Married since December 2020, the 26-year-old woman and mother of a 10-month-old baby had filed a hand-written complaint in December "to report that she was leaving the marital home in Cavaillon (Vaucluse), while fearing that the father might take the child to Morocco," her country of origin, explains Cécile Gensac, the Nîmes prosecutor, in a press release.

After his crime, the man forced an esthetician who was intervening at the victim’s home, and a witness to the murders, to accompany him to the Alès police station. In an irregular situation, the defendant "was the subject of an obligation to leave the national territory by the prefectures of the Drôme and Vaucluse in 2019 and May 2022," the prosecution reveals.

The Moroccan has no criminal record for domestic violence and no criminal proceedings were pending against him for this offense in France, the prosecution assures.