Nearly a month and a half after his arrest in Switzerland, Taha O., the suspect in the murder of Philippine whose body was found partly buried in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris on September 21, 2024, was handed over to the authorities on Wednesday French authorities and must be presented to an investigating judge.
This Wednesday, November 6, 2024, Taha O., a 22-year-old Moroccan, was handed over to the French authorities in Annemasse (Haute-Savoie), on the border with Switzerland, AFP learned from a source close to the case, confirming a information from BFMTV.
The suspect had fled to Switzerland
A spokesperson for the Swiss Ministry of Justice also confirmed to AFP its handover to the French authorities and specified that “the operations took place without incident”. Taha O. was arrested on September 24 in Switzerland where he had fled after the murder of Philippine, a 19-year-old student, whose body was discovered buried in Paris in the Bois de Boulogne three days earlier. A judicial investigation was opened in Paris for rape and homicide. He was heard again this Monday by the public prosecutor of the canton of Geneva and had confirmed his consent to being handed over to France according to a simplified extradition procedure, the Paris prosecutor's office indicated.
An extradition request filed since October 9
France filed an extradition request on October 9 but the suspect initially refused to be extradited. His lawyer in Switzerland, Me Florence Yersin, announced last Tuesday that he had finally accepted this extradition “after understanding the ins and outs of the procedure”, believing that it was “an informed choice of his leaves.” Philippine's murder caused immense emotion in France and also a virulent public debate.
Already convicted in 2021 for rape
The suspect was already convicted in 2021 for rape, then released in June 2024, “at the end of his sentence”, according to the Paris prosecutor's office. He was then placed in an administrative detention center in Metz. Upon his release, he was placed under house arrest in a hotel in Yonne where he never went. Having failed to comply with his reporting obligation, he was included in the wanted persons file the day before the murder, September 19.
“Heinous crime”
He was under an obligation to leave the territory, which provoked strong reactions, in particular from the far right. After this murder and the arrest of the suspect in Switzerland, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau also urged us to “evolve (the) legal arsenal”. On September 26, President Macron expressed “the emotion of the entire Nation” after a “heinous crime” and considered that it was necessary “to better protect the French every day”.
In a letter addressed to AFP, a previous victim of the suspect spoke to nuance the debates. The “dysfunction” of the OQTF must not “obliterate the essential question of recidivism”, she stressed in her letter, authenticated by AFP. “Why did the prison system fail to prevent this recurrence? Why were we unable to stop this escalation of violence leading to the murder of a young woman?”, asked the editor of the letter. “Even if this OQTF had been respected, what international cooperation mechanisms exist to prevent the recurrence of sexist and sexual crimes by deported criminals? Our fraternity, our humanism, cannot stop at the gates of our borders,” he said. she writes.
What his extradition changes
For the first time, the alleged murderer of the student will be able to be heard by French investigators since his arrest and his flight to Switzerland. As reported by TF1, “he will have to answer the questions. We will question him about what he did, how it happened or what he did not do. It will be an interrogation on the merits of the case”, explains Evelyne Sire-Marin, honorary magistrate.
To date, the only certainty about Philippine's death is that she died of asphyxiation.
