As soon as he expressed his feelings to her, she believed that she would be in good hands who would take care of her and protect her. In fact, she found herself in the clutches of a monster.
Aged fifteen, this high school student stares at her attacker who is standing in the dock, in the courtroom of the criminal chamber at the Casablanca Court of Appeal. Being still a minor, her mother, her guardian, stands by her side.
“He told me that he loved me and that he was going to marry me,” she stammered in front of the three magistrates of the Court. When the president asks her if she believed his words, she remains silent. How does a teenager who is still in her fifteenth year think about marriage when she must continue her studies and first think about ensuring her personal and financial autonomy?
On the other hand, the accused, aged twenty-six, prosecuted under arrest for embezzlement and indecent assault on a minor, denied the charges against him. He explains to the Court that he never met the victim while adding that he met her from time to time in his neighborhood because she lives not far from his home.
“He sent me an invitation on Facebook and I accepted it,” the teenager claimed in court, specifying that he asked her to meet. The first meeting dates back to two months before he caught her in his net, we learn from his statements recorded in the minutes of his hearing. He, too, had made the same statement to the judicial police who arrested and questioned him.
“They forced me to declare what was recorded in the report,” he claims before the Court while accusing the investigators of having threatened to mistreat him. But the president asks him if he had signed on the minutes of his hearing without being obliged to do so. “Yes,” he replies. The Court concludes that he did not make his statements under threat and that they were only lies.
Indeed, according to his statements recorded in the report, he asked the victim to accompany him home just to introduce her to his sister.
“I knew his sister because we live in the same neighborhood,” said the victim, who added that she accompanied him without asking any questions.
In the absence of her parents, he asked her to sleep together. But, she refused while explaining to him that he had to wait until they were married. This is how he showed his true colors. He threw her on the bed while holding a knife to her face. He threatened to scar him.
“I begged him to leave me without touching me,” she continues. But in vain. He stripped her naked and subjected her to several sexual assaults without making her lose her virginity. She quickly went to her mother to tell her what happened to her. Taken to the police station, a complaint was made and the suspect arrested.
Verdict: Found guilty of the charges attributed to him, he was sentenced to ten years of criminal imprisonment.
Morocco
