Faid Abdellah, 24, was sentenced Tuesday in Paris to 11 years of criminal imprisonment and permanent ban from French territory for the rape of a sleeping woman at Cochin hospital in Paris in October 2022.
The Paris criminal court found the accused guilty of rape under the influence of drugs and alcohol, against a vulnerable person, theft and fraud.
His name will also be registered in Fijais, the sex offenders file.
The facts for which the accused was prosecuted took place on the night of October 27 to 28, 2022.
On Monday, the 36-year-old victim explained that she had consumed alcohol that evening in a Parisian bar where she is accustomed. On an empty stomach, she felt unwell, fell and was taken to the emergency room of Cochin hospital, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.
On site, the young woman fell asleep in her box, before being awakened “by pain”.
“I looked in front of me and there I saw a horror scene,” she detailed. One man had “his hand and two or three fingers buried deep in my vagina and he was going back and forth extremely hard and fast.”
The attacker then fled, taking the victim's bank card.
Tuesday at the start of the hearing, the bailiff presented to the court the victim's torn tights, pierced with a gaping hole in the private parts.
The public prosecutor had requested 12 years of criminal imprisonment against Faid Abdellah, as well as a definitive ban from French territory and his registration in Fijais.
The civil party's lawyers had requested a “firm criminal response” in response to “the devastating impact of this crime” on the victim. “We are demanding compensation for her, but also for all women who have seen their lives destroyed by predators,” pleaded Me Laura Abecassis.
– “If she had screamed” –
The descriptions of the suspect made by the victim and hospital staff on the evening of the incident converged on a North African man, 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 this man near his establishment and that he had acted “like a malicious prowler” around the victim while she was on the ground after her fall.
Questioned Tuesday morning, Faid Abdellah's speech oscillated between “I don't remember” and changes of versions. In tears, he ended up asking to remain silent, answering from time to time the court's questions.
During the two days of trial, the mystery remained around this man, a construction worker, with an “uncertain and fluctuating story” both regarding the unfolding of the facts and the elements of his personal life.
“What is true? The first, the second, the third or the fourth version?” asked the president of the court, Sabine Raczy.
“The real version is the one I told before the investigating judge, the last one,” replied Faid Abdellah, specifying that he did not have “the courage to repeat.”
During the investigation, Mr. Abdellah initially denied the facts, before admitting them at the very end of the investigation.
He then admitted to having consumed “cocaine and cannabis” and raped the victim, thinking “that she liked it” and that she “looked happy” and “okay”.
“If she had screamed, I would have stopped,” he repeated in court.
The defense had argued in favor of a “mixed” sentence accompanied by socio-judicial monitoring.
“He knows that his life is at stake. The gentleman’s humanity is there. I ask you to take it into account,” insisted Me Clothilde Humbert.
Faid Abdellah, subject to four obligations to leave French territory since 2019, was sentenced in 2021 to one year in prison with a committal warrant for violent theft.
