trial of a mother, accused of murdering her disabled daughters

Her daughters have not been found for more than seven years: a mother, accused of aggravated intentional homicide, has been on trial since Monday before the Lot-et-Garonne Assize Court in Agen. The two teenagers aged 12 and 13, born with malformations, have not been seen since December 7, 2016 in the Specialized Institute of Education for the Multiplely Handicapped (Isep) in Tonneins, where they were welcomed during the day. Five months later, the Departmental Council’s Child and Family Directorate reported their disappearance.

First prosecuted for “abandonment of minors” and incarcerated in September 2017, their mother Naïma Bel Allam saw her indictment transformed into “aggravated intentional homicide” in January 2018, after the discovery of a “brownish” stain in the home of Nérac. But his examination did not give conclusive results: it revealed several different DNA, including that of the former tenant of the accommodation, according to Ms. Bel Allam’s lawyer, Me Sophie Grolleau. Searches were also undertaken for a week in February 2022 by around thirty soldiers, gendarmes and gendarmerie divers in a wooded area a few kilometers from the family home, but without allowing any decisive progress.

Released in November 2021, Naïma Bel Allam, a former accountant of Moroccan origin abandoned by her husband, gave divergent versions to investigators about her daughters, whom she raised alone. She notably explained that she had entrusted them to a Moroccan couple at a motorway rest area in Spain, a version denied by investigators. “She has been proclaiming her innocence for seven years. She has said from the start that she did not kill her daughters and that they are safe, says her lawyer Me Grolleau. “She is deliberately covering her tracks, she wants them protect French institutions in which she has completely lost confidence,” she adds.

The father, who had not seen his daughters for several years when they disappeared, filed a civil suit. “If there was the slightest proof of life, my client would be the happiest in the world,” said his lawyer Sylvie Brussiau. “We do not have this proof of life, even seven years after the start of the investigation. He no longer believes in it and what he would like is to give a dignified burial to his daughters who have disappeared .”

The verdict is expected on Thursday.