Moroccan Court Delays Appeal in Toddler Murder Case to March 3

According to the paternal aunt of little Théa, the fourth trial of Mounir Kiouh, 40, has been postponed to March 3 next "so that all parties can be summoned to participate in the trial," reports L’Avenir. "All we hope for today is that he will be convicted again and that he will remain in prison," she had said. Notified late, the family of the little victim could not go to Morocco to attend the debates.

Mounir Kiouh was the new companion of Jennifer Devos, the mother of little Théa. 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 intent to do so.

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 Judicial Code, 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. Aware of this opening, Jennifer Devos and the ex-in-laws went to Tétouan, Morocco, in 2019, to file a complaint. The MRE will be arrested, indicted for the murder of a minor child, then incarcerated.

The criminal chamber of Tétouan had sentenced Mounir Kiouh at the end of November to 20 years of criminal detention for intentional violence resulting in death without intent to do so. 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 forensic doctor," explained the Tangier lawyer, Fouad Harouach, who defended the interests of the family of the little victim, with the bar president Brahim Semlali.