Oise: the trial of Shaïna's ex-boyfriend, stabbed and burned alive at 15, opens on Monday

Europe 1 with AFP 07:08, 05 June 2023

The trial of Shaïna's ex-boyfriend, accused of murdering and burning alive in 2019 the teenager, probably pregnant with him and victim two years earlier in Creil of sexual assault, opens Monday before the Assize Court of minors of Oise. Suspected of luring Shaïna, 15, to the shed of a workers' garden to kill her and burn her body, the accused, 17 at the time, appears until Friday. He has so far always contested his involvement and his lawyer did not wish to speak before the hearing.

His trial is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., most likely behind closed doors. Mobilized for years to bring justice to her sister, a "fighter", Shaïna's eldest, Yasin Hansye, called for a rally in support of the family from 8 am. On October 27, 2019, Shaïna's body was discovered almost completely charred by the police, guided by a rumor. The forensic expertise will reveal "multiple wounds" to the knife but also that she was still breathing at the beginning of the fire.

Stabbed fifteen times

The day before, she had gone out after a family dinner. In her purse, her relatives found a positive pregnancy test. According to various expert reports, the teenager, who had had an abortion a few months earlier, was most likely starting a new pregnancy. According to the investigation, she was convinced of this and attributed paternity to the accused, with whom she was having an affair. Two anonymous calls, then a key testimony, quickly steer the investigation towards the young man.

One of his friends says that he came to see him on the night of the events, and told him that he had given Shaïna an appointment to kill her. He allegedly stabbed her fifteen times, and was injured by a blowback. This witness provides details known only to investigators. Shaïna refused to have an abortion, he reveals. Other elements incriminate the young man: if his phone has disappeared, he multiplies the SMS to Shaïna that day. As the crime approaches, both activate the same bollard, 500 meters from the shed. And the accused's device is switched off between 21:36 p.m. and 22:13 p.m., the approximate time of the facts.

Treated "like a thing"

He will explain his burns by a "rubbing" then an "eczema", and varies his statements on his schedule. He admits some sexual relations with Shaïna from August, but claims to have broken up, and accuses the witnesses of lying. But a fellow prisoner reportedly heard him "proudly say" that he had "killed his girlfriend, who was 'a whore', whom he had 'gotten pregnant'", wanting his family to avoid his family finding out. In prison, he said he "would rather take 30 years than be the father of a bastard," said another inmate.

The crime could be "a desperate attempt" to preserve his image, in a context of "cultural and religious prohibition" related to sexuality, said a psychologist expert. Two years earlier, Shaïna had been the victim of sexual assault, for which four other young people from his city were sentenced Thursday on appeal to suspended sentences ranging from six months to two years in prison.

The death of Shaïna "is the culmination of a long ordeal", triggered by this first case, develops the lawyer of the family, Me Negar Haeri. Abused in a disused clinic where her then-boyfriend had trained her, Shaïna had been filmed by her attackers. Images broadcast on Snapchat, exposing him, according to Mr. Haeri to a "growing denigration". Shaïna was treated "as a thing, with whom we sleep, but which we can suppress," she laments.

"Justice has not been able to protect it," she criticized, calling for "collective questioning of what went off the rails". The number of femicides increased by 20% in France in 2021 compared to the previous year, with 122 women killed by their spouse or ex-spouse, according to the Interior Ministry.