opening of the trial of a man accused of raping a patient at Cochin hospital

In Paris, the trial of a 24-year-old man from Jordan opened on Monday, November 4. He is on trial for raping a patient at Cochin hospital. Under obligations to leave French territory, he had already been sentenced.

The trial of this 24-year-old man has opened in Paris. Faid Abdellah is on trial for the rape of a young woman at Cochin hospital. The accused, originally from Jordan, appears before the criminal court until Tuesday, November 5.

He is accused of rape under the influence of drugs and alcohol, theft and fraud. The alleged facts date back to October 28, 2022. Shortly after four o'clock, the police were required for an intervention at Cochin hospital, when a man, suspected of having raped a patient, had fled. She filed a complaint shortly after the incident.

The hearing opened with the testimony of the 36-year-old victim, who declared having experienced a “horror scene“.

“I was a corpse. For two years, my life has completely escaped me“, asserts the 36-year-old woman on the stand. Surrounded by her loved ones, the young woman spent the first day of the hearing with her gaze fixed towards the court, continually counting a silver rosary in her hands. She describes having consumed this evening -there “a glass of wine, two very charged cocktails and a shot” in a Parisian bar that she used to frequent. On an empty stomach, she explains that she then felt unwell, then fell, before being taken to Cochin hospital.

On site, the young woman had fallen asleep in her box while waiting for a medical examination. “I woke up to a white wall and realized I was in the hospital“, she continued, indicating that she was awakened by “the pain“.”I looked ahead and there I saw a scene of horror, extremely shocking, surreal“, she detailed. A man, standing, had “his hand and two or three fingers buried deep in my vagina and he was going back and forth extremely hard and fast“, she described.

The patient also remembers her tights being torn at the crotch. If it is not of a nature to “let it happen“, she says she stayed”stoic“, and n”will never forget“the man”smiling“with a”Machiavellian look“His attacker then fled, taking his bank card.”I feel humiliated and defiled“, she declared, considering it possible to have also been the victim of penile penetration, given her position, “legs spread” and despite the absence of memories.

The descriptions of the suspect made by the victim and hospital staff converged on a man of North African type, approximately 1.80 m tall and bearded. He himself was reportedly hospitalized in the evening at Cochin hospital, in a state of drunkenness. Interviewed, the bar manager indicated that he had seen the same man near his establishment and that he acted “like an ill-intentioned prowler” around the victim while he was on the ground after his fall.

Faid Abdellah was arrested around 5 a.m., not far from the hospital. A urine drug test showed that he had used cocaine as well as cannabis. During almost the entire hearing, the accused, who claims to have arrived in France in 2019, kept his head in his hands. The 24-year-old man burst into tears several times and responded to the court sometimes in Arabic with the help of an interpreter and sometimes in broken French.

Expert psychiatrists, psychologists and investigators have painted a portrait of a man with “uncertain and fluctuating story“, both on the unfolding of the facts and the elements of his personal life. “I lied too much, but today I have nothing more to hide“, he nevertheless assured, apologizing to the victim and his family. He must be questioned about the facts, this Tuesday, November 5 in the morning. He had first contested them, before recognizing them at the very end of instruction.

Faid Abdellah, subject to four obligations to leave French territory (OQTF) since 2019, was sentenced in 2021 to one year in prison with a committal warrant for violent theft.