Three Moroccans Sentenced for Violent Kidnapping in Southern France

The events took place on the night of October 15 to 16, 2019 in Chalabre. Mouhsine (30 years old), Ouail, a man in his forties and Ilham, a 33-year-old woman, get into Ouail’s vehicle in Carcassonne to go to Rémy’s (54 years old) home in Chalabre. Ilham knocks on the window. "Moushine asked me to go knock on the window so he could open it for me. I didn’t want to do it, but he threatened to kill me. I went there with my face uncovered. He thought that if it was a woman showing up, he would open his door more easily. That’s what he did. That’s the only role I had in this story, I swear. The rest of the time, I stayed outside," the defendant said from the dock.

Rémy opens the door. Ouail and Moushine, hooded and gloved, pin him to the ground, beat him, strangle him and threaten him with a kitchen knife, hammering at him: "Where’s the safe, where is it? You’re going to tell us where you’re hiding it!" they say, according to La Dépêche du Midi. They tie up the quinquagenarian, hold him hostage, assault and torture him. "There’s no safe!" the thieves tell him. Rémy told them he only had a wallet and bank cards. Furious, one of the two men soaks him in gasoline and waves a burning piece of cloth near him. "I never did that, Madam President. I never wanted to go that far, I’m not crazy. It was dangerous for Rémy and for us! It was Moushine. He went crazy!" Ouail defends himself from the glass dock. A little before 1 a.m., they leave the victim’s house, taking with them two bank cards, 90 euros in cash, a mobile phone, a tablet. They go to Carcassonne, where they withdraw 600 euros from the Caisse d’Epargne on the Avenue du Général-Leclerc.

While they thought they had pulled off their coup without leaving a trace, the investigators discover on the spot a woolen glove on which Ouail’s DNA will be identified. This is how they manage to arrest Moushine and Ilham nine months later. At the end of the deliberations, the court delivers its judgment: Ouail is sentenced to four years’ imprisonment with immediate incarceration. Same sentence for Moushine, probably returned to Morocco. He is the subject of an arrest warrant. As for Ilham, she was sentenced to 12 months in prison with probation.