Moroccan Man Wrongly Convicted of Rape Seeks Rehabilitation in French Court

Will Farid become the twelfth person to be rehabilitated since 1945 in France? The court of review is examining his request. "He has never ceased, during the first years, during the investigation, during the instruction, during his trial, long after, to say ’I am innocent’," recalls Franck Berton, Farid’s lawyer to France Info. "But he could no longer imagine that one day we could come back to this innocence and above all consecrate it. He only learned it finally in the summer of 2022, when they told him that she (Julie) had gone back on her accusations. She says ’it wasn’t you’, she says her rapist was her brother. And she apologizes."

According to Farid’s lawyer and the lawyer of the accuser, there were "dysfunctions" throughout the judicial chain. "When Julie D. talks about the rape, at 15 years old, she is doing very badly. She confides in those close to her, but she does not denounce her brother ’to protect her family’. She wrongly accuses this young man from her town," comments Anne-Sophie Wagnon-Horiot, the accuser’s lawyer. Julie "was indeed a victim," she confirms, referring to the psychological and psychiatric assessments. "But not of Farid El Haïry," the lawyer points out.

"The word of a child or a teenager means something. But it must be analyzed, investigated, verified. There must be an investigation," she insists. The investigation was "scandalous and partial" with even "a racist dimension," estimates Franck Berton for his part.