This 22-year-old Moroccan was also placed in pre-trial detention. He had already been convicted of rape in the past and was targeted by an OQTF.
Taha O., main suspect in the murder of Philippine, was indicted this Wednesday evening for “murder accompanied or followed by another crime, rape, theft and fraud as a repeat legal offender”indicates the Paris prosecutor's office in a press release. “These offenses carry a penalty of life imprisonment. Following an adversarial debate, he was placed in pre-trial detention by the judge of freedoms and detention.specifies the public prosecutor.
Wednesday evening, at the hearing before the judge of freedoms and detention (JLD), the 22-year-old Moroccan with brown hair combed back and a brown beard appeared hunched, his gaze fixed on the ground, before the magistrate does not pronounce the closed session, reports AFP. Afterwards, his lawyer did not wish to comment. The suspect remained silent before the investigating judge, according to a source close to the case.
Taha O. had been handed over by Switzerland to French authorities earlier in the day, the Figaro a source close to the file, confirming information from BFMTV . Heard on Monday by the Geneva public prosecutor's office, he finally accepted a simplified extradition procedure, after initially refusing. He indeed had the choice between extradition “simplified”fast, and extradition “ordinary”longer.
Already convicted of rape and under OQTF
Philippine, a 19-year-old student at Paris-Dauphine University, disappeared on Friday September 20 after her lunch break. The next day, his lifeless body was found half buried in the Bois de Boulogne, not far from his university. The suspect, Taha O., was arrested on September 24 in Geneva, Switzerland, after fleeing the day after the incident. A judicial investigation had been opened against him for “murder, accompanied or followed by another crime, rape, theft and fraud”.
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This crime aroused immense emotion in France and provoked lively debates. At the end of summer 2019, shortly after his arrival in France, the suspect raped a 23-year-old student in a forest in Taverny (Val-d'Oise). In October 2021, after two years of pre-trial detention, Taha O. was sentenced by the Val-d'Oise juvenile court to seven years in prison. In June 2024, after his release from prison, he was placed in an administrative detention center (CRA) in Metz. At the same time, the Yonne prefecture issued an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) against him and a request for a consular permit was made by the French authorities in Morocco.
On September 3, a liberty and detention judge authorized his release from detention, while recognizing a risk of “reiteration of criminal acts”. The Moroccan was then under house arrest in a hotel in Yonne, where he never went. On September 4, Morocco sent a consular pass to France, allowing the expulsion of Taha O., but the latter then disappeared into thin air. Philippine's lifeless body was found less than three weeks later.
“The investigations are now continuing under the direction of the investigating judges in charge of the case with the aim of establishing the circumstances of the commission of the facts and the background of the person indicted”further indicates the Paris prosecutor's office this Wednesday evening.
