The alleged murderer of the young Filipina, Taha Oualidat, was handed over to the French authorities as part of his extradition, indicates a judicial source, confirming information from BFMTV. He was handed over to the police in Annemasse (Haute-Savoie) by the Swiss authorities this Wednesday. The 22-year-old man is now on his way to Paris, where he will be presented to an investigating judge for indictment. The prison administration is responsible for the transfer to the capital.
Arrested at the Geneva station four days after the murder, Taha Oualidat initially refused his extradition to France during a first hearing on October 16, before finally accepting two weeks later. “He made this decision after a discussion with me”declared Me Florence Yersin, his Swiss lawyer, to BFMTV. “He knew he could have appealed for months”but he made the choice
“to move forward with the French procedure and not delay it”.
On September 21, the Paris prosecutor's office opened a judicial investigation for “rape and homicide” after the discovery of the body of Philippine, a 19-year-old student at Paris-Dauphine University, found buried in the Bois de Boulogne. Taha Oualidat was arrested on September 24 at the main train station in Geneva. He had been located a few hours earlier by the police, in Haute-Savoie.
Taha Oualidat was already known to the justice services in France. Arriving in France from Spain in 2019 when he was 17, he benefited from a tourist visa and was taken care of by Val-d'Oise child welfare, in because of his minority. Shortly after his arrival, he was sentenced in 2021 to seven years in prison for the rape of a 23-year-old student, committed on a forest trail in Taverny (Val-d'Oise), a few months after his arrival in the territory. French. He was identified using his DNA by investigators from the Val-d'Oise Departmental Security. He finished serving his sentence in June 2024, after spending almost five years in prison.
Upon his release from prison, Taha Oualidat was placed in an administrative detention center (CRA) in Metz, in eastern France, with a view to his expulsion. He had been under an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) since June 18. On September 3, a judge of freedoms and detention (JLD) ordered his house arrest in a hotel in Yonne, with a reporting obligation. He will never show up at this hotel. On September 6, a consular pass from Morocco was issued to allow his expulsion, but he was already on the run and was the subject of a search card.
