Mid-morning, the victim went to the bank, boulevard Tirou, to withdraw his account statements. There she meets a security agent, with whom she talks regularly. Catarina is smiling, but suddenly gets angry. “I heard her shout: he stole 500 euros from me,” the security guard told the court. “She told me she trusted this person. She stormed off, screaming on the phone.”
The witness confirms that the suspect mentioned by the victim was a man, and not a woman, while Kamel Benale claims that it was his partner who orchestrated the hijackings.
The security guard went to see a bank employee, who welcomed Catarina into his office. “She was in all her states, I took a look at the extracts. There were a certain number of transactions, made instantly, with sometimes expensive amounts. I did some research. It turned out that a banking application had been installed on a phone that was not his, in the middle of the night, on January 18, between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.
This application was installed on Kamel’s partner’s phone. The latter held the victim’s card and code.
The banker blocked Catarina’s bank card and suggested she file a police report. “She didn’t mention any names, but it’s obvious she knew who it was. She left insulting the person, without mentioning them.” The witness no longer remembers whether it was a man or a woman.
According to Kamel Benale’s partner, Catarina called him around 10:30 a.m., very angry. Kamel then left Tamines to go to Charleroi. According to him, it was to fix things with Catarina.
In the meantime, it has returned to the snack bar. According to the boss, she complained because several bank withdrawals had been made without her knowledge, including two recent ones. These were significant sums.
Around 12:40 p.m., a fire broke out in the apartment occupied by Catarina Dominici, rue des Peines Perdus. One of the phones used by Kamel Benale terminal near the victim’s home.
At the beginning of the afternoon, Kamel Benale returns to Tamines. He asks his partner if she has heard of a fire in the building where Catarina lives. The companion posts a newspaper article shortly after 2:00 p.m. on Facebook. The press was only informed of the macabre discovery late in the afternoon.
The victim had died before the fire
The security guard learns from the press that Catarina died in the fire. He does not sleep at night and goes to the police the next day.
The autopsy later revealed that the victim died before the fire and that one of his ribs was broken.
What was initially an accidental fire thus becomes suspicious. Kamel Benale’s partner is questioned in prison and denounces him. The defendant was finally arrested a few months later.
On Wednesday, the lawyers will plead and the attorney general will present his indictment. The question of premeditation will be asked.
