Elderly Moroccan Man Brutally Stabbed to Death in French City of Pau

"The daughter of the victim of the murder of a septuagenarian in Ousse-des-Bois is still in shock from what happened and the extreme violence of the facts. She is the one who called the firefighters when she had no news of her father. She is trying to understand the meaning of this avalanche of knife blows. She does not explain it in view of her father’s peaceful life, a recognized personality in the neighborhood," explains her lawyer, criminal lawyer Antoine Tugas, to Sud Ouest.

The daughter, Ismahène, recounts how Amar S. was a good father and a "very close" grandfather to his 6-year-old daughter. "He gave her gifts. She never came back empty-handed," she confides. Her father, she adds, "went through trials" and "was known to the police," but changed and became a good person. "He had a big heart and was appreciated in the neighborhood," she assures. He settled in Pau, France at the age of 18, after leaving his native Morocco and working as a truck driver in the Netherlands and Belgium.

The victim is said to have housed a Moroccan compatriot in his thirties, who arrived in Béarn a few months ago and is the alleged murderer. "My father trusted everyone, he didn’t mistrust, he regularly welcomed people in need. I didn’t agree with that. He never told me he was housing this gentleman," his daughter confides. The young man, an agricultural worker, surrendered to the police and was indicted for murder.

Ismahène announced the sad news to her brothers living in the Bordeaux region and to her uncle. The family hopes to have clear answers to all their questions at the end of the ongoing investigation. "We ask ourselves every day. What happened? Why so many knife blows? This man went crazy, he’s not normal. Maybe he had a fit of madness? We all have fits of anger, but I imagine that when you see blood, you stop. 59 knife blows? What went through his head?" she wonders.