The Seine-Saint-Denis Assize Court began on Tuesday to try a man for the murder of his wife in November 2021 in Épinay-sur-Seine upon his release from detention, a resounding feminicide which led the justice system to review its protocols.
Khalid Fahem faces life imprisonment for the seventeen stab murder of Bouchra Bouali, nine days after his release from prison where he was serving a sentence for domestic violence. An early release of three weeks of which the justice system had forgotten to inform the victim, who benefited from protection protocols.
A short and skinny fifty-year-old with double-bridge glasses emphasizing his thin face, Khalid Fahem began the hearing by saying that he ” Sorry “ et “still disturbed” by the murder of Bouchra.
Since she announced their breakup to her husband in the spring, this clothing store owner “really lived in terror”noted at the bar the director of investigation of the judicial police of Seine-Saint-Denis.
During the months preceding the tragedy, this 44-year-old mother had denounced in three successive complaints the recurring death threats made by her husband. These had earned the accused two stays behind bars and led to the monitoring of his wife by the socio-judicial systems for the protection of victims of domestic violence in serious danger.
The former nightclub physiognomist “had the feeling of having been wrongly incarcerated, of having suffered the wrath of his wife”underlined the investigator in court.
“This is why he was completely obsessed with his wife during his entire period of incarceration, he ruminated on these facts”she added. “We have the impression that he was leaving prison only to ‘finish the job’, that was his only goal. »
On the evening of November 26, 2021, while his wife was unaware that he had been released from detention, Khalid Fahem surprised her with a kitchen knife at the foot of the Épinay-sur-Seine tower where she lived.
Taking the murder weapon out of the sealed envelope, the bailiff showed the court a blade deformed by the violence of the blows.
The verdict is expected on Friday.
The impact of this crime led the Ministry of Justice to issue a decree a month later ordering the authorities to systematically inform victims of domestic violence of the release from detention of a violent spouse and to question the measures protection to take.
On average, a feminicide occurs every three days in France. According to the Ministry of Justice, there were 94 in 2023, compared to 118 in 2022.