A sentence of 25 years of criminal imprisonment with a two-thirds security period was requested this Thursday against a former “star” graphic designer for Disney and Pixar, tried in Paris for complicity in rape and sexual assault on several hundred Filipino girls.
“On the garden side, you have the graphic designer who amazes children […] then on the court side, Bouhalem B. is a pedophile director who scripts his own horror films,” declared Attorney General Philippe Courroye, in the introduction to his indictment. The public prosecutor also requested a 10-year socio-judicial follow-up against the accused providing for an obligation of care, as well as a ban on exercising a profession involving minors. The verdict is expected during the day.
Repeat rapes and sexual assaults on minors
The 59-year-old former graphic designer has been on trial since Tuesday before the Paris Assize Court for complicity in rape and repeated sexual assault on minors. He is also being prosecuted for complicity in aggravated human trafficking of minors as a repeat offender, possession of child pornography images as a repeat offender and habitual viewing of child pornography content online.
Bouhalem B. is accused of having, between 2012 and 2021, paid Filipino women to rape and sexually assault young girls, mostly aged five to 10, live in front of a webcam via the practice of live-streaming. On the other side of the screen, several thousand kilometers away, the accused was giving orders and masturbating.
Child victims “who have neither age nor face”
“If these little victims are absent, I am sure that you have heard, during this hearing, their cries, their suffering and their sobs,” declared the attorney general. The addition of the aggravating circumstance of acts of torture and barbarity to the facts of complicity in rape, sexual assault and human trafficking was also required.
Earlier Thursday, the civil parties asked that “the voice of the great forgotten” of this trial, the child victims “who have neither age nor face”, be heard, according to Me Inès Davau, lawyer for the association La Voix de l’Enfant. “We are here to remind you that these children are real children, not animated characters,” M saide Céline Astolfe of the Children's Foundation, pleading in favor of a “punitive, dissuasive” decision with “restorative virtue”.
During his interrogation on Wednesday, Bouhalem B., described by experts as a “pedophile” with a “sadistic” predominance, had admitted “all the facts” alleged, including the requests he had been able to make, going as far as “the torture “.
