The suspect arrested in Switzerland was under OQTF and already convicted of rape

A young man was arrested on Tuesday, September 24, in Switzerland, suspected of being involved in the death of Philippine, a 19-year-old student whose lifeless body was discovered buried on Saturday in the Bois de Boulogne, in the west of Paris.

The suspect, named Taha O., was arrested in Geneva by local police officers. An extradition request to France will be sent to the Swiss authorities, according to the Figaro the Paris prosecutor’s office. The suspect was already known to the French justice services and was subject to an OQTF (Obligation to Leave French Territory) with a ban on returning to France for 10 years.

He raped a student in 2019

According to our information, Taha O. is a Moroccan national, born in 2002 in the city of Oujda, Morocco. He entered France from Spain on June 13, 2019, thanks to a tourist visa, at the age of 17. At the time, he was quickly taken into care by the Val-d’Oise child welfare service.

This did not prevent him, at the end of the summer of 2019, from committing a rape on a 23-year-old student on a forest path in Taverny, in the Val-d’Oise. He was quickly identified by investigators from the Val-d’Oise Departmental Security thanks to his DNA and arrested. Placed in pre-trial detention, he was sentenced two years later, in October 2021 by the juvenile assize court, to seven years in prison. Behind bars, he receives no visits in the visiting room or phone calls.

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He never showed up at his place of assignment.

On June 20, 2024, he was released from prison to be placed in an administrative detention center (CRA) in Metz, after almost five years in prison. According to a source close to the case, a judge of liberties and detention released him on September 3 from the CRA where he was being held.

Since he was the subject of an OQTF, against which he did not lodge any appeal, the courts notified him of a house arrest in a hotel in Yonne, handled by the General Directorate for Foreigners in France (DGEF). However, he never returned to his place of assignment, we learned. On September 4, Morocco sent a consular pass, allowing his expulsion from the country. But at that time, the man was already untraceable.

To trace Taha O., the authorities analyzed video surveillance images and telephone data. The investigations established that Philippine’s bank card was used in Montreuil-sous-Bois, in Seine-Saint-Denis, after the murder. According to the first elements of the investigation, Philippine was killed Friday afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne. The Moroccan national then returned the next day to bury her.

Man with a pickaxe

The victim, named Philippine and aged 19, was a student at the University of Paris-Dauphine. Her body was found buried during a search on Saturday afternoon. It was her family who reported her disappearance.

The student was last seen on Friday at lunchtime at the university. Philippine was also filmed by CCTV cameras walking towards the Bois de Boulogne after her lunch, according to our information.

An investigation into voluntary homicide has been opened and entrusted to the criminal brigade of the Paris judicial police. According to a police source, witnesses had reported seeing a man with a pickaxe in the area.