A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her.
Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected.
On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire.
Photo: AFP
A neighbor hearing the screams tried to intervene, but it was too late for Daoud. When her body was recovered, it was completely charred. She was 31 and a mother of three.
Boutaa, who filmed part of the horrific scene, was arrested shortly afterward.
“I wanted to burn her for all the things that she and the judiciary did,” he told police after his arrest.
He denied any intention to kill his wife, saying he had wanted instead to “punish her,” burn her “a little” and make sure she would “keep marks.”
Boutaa, a builder, had been released from prison at the end of 2020 after serving time for choking his wife and threatening her with a knife.
He had already been accused of domestic violence against a previous partner.
The court issued a restraining order, saying he could not approach Daoud, but they started living together again until March 2021, when she filed another police complaint against her husband.
Investigators later found the handling of her complaint by a police officer — himself found guilty of domestic violence — severely lacking and opened an inquiry into a series of police “failures.”
The victim was not given a “serious danger phone” that allows women to alert the authorities directly, and her husband was not made to wear an electronic bracelet that could have allowed police to detect his movements in her vicinity.
The investigation resulted in sanctions against five police officers. The victim’s family has since also launched a case against the French state for “serious failures.”
Dozens of people demonstrated outside the courthouse to protest against the handling of the case.
“We’re here mostly to speak out against the authorities, the government that fails to do its job,” said one demonstrator who declined to give her name. “Especially against the police, who don’t protect women.”
There were 96 cases of domestic femicide in France in 2023, 19 percent fewer than the previous year, according to French Ministry of the Interior data.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS