Lola's mother posted an image of her daughter to Facebook. Photo / Supplied
Lola's mother posted an image of her daughter to Facebook. Photo / Supplied
Warning: Distressing content
An Algerian woman charged with the rape, torture and murder of a 12-year-old girl found in a plastic box was in France illegally at the time, sparking fury at the country’s immigration laws.
The child’s brutalised body was found in the plastic box in a courtyard of her apartment building in northeast Paris after she failed to return home from school last week.
She was identified only by her first name, Lola, under French law. An autopsy showed she had died of asphyxiation.
She had other wounds including on her face and neck, and the numbers zero and one had reportedly been written in red on the soles of her feet.
It has emerged the 24-year-old woman accused of killing her, Dahbia B, had previously been ordered to leave the country. She had overstayed a student visa and in August had received notice to leave France within 30 days.
Police have determined Dahbia B also had a history of psychiatric disorders.
The woman, who was arrested Saturday in a northeastern suburb of the capital, is now in custody on charges of murder and rape of a minor, torture, acts of barbarity and concealment of a corpse, the Paris state prosecutor said.
A 43-year-old man is also in custody, charged with helping to hide the girl’s body, according to a prosecutors’ statement.
Lola was seen following the woman into her building. Photo / BFMTV
The killing of Lola has sparked a heated political debate after reports emerged identifying Dahbia B as an immigrant who remained in France despite an official order that mandated her to leave.
A judicial investigation is underway to determine the motive behind the killing - one theory posits a dispute between Dahbia B and Lola’s mother - and a timeline of events that led to Lola’s death Friday and the discovery of her body that night in the courtyard of the building where she lived with her family.
“We are profoundly shaken, faced with the horror and the pain,” French government spokesman Olivier Veran told reporters.
The girl’s father reported his daughter missing Friday afternoon after she failed to return home from school. He works as a concierge in the building and used security camera footage to retrace the girl’s movements.
He reported that his daughter entered the building with an unknown woman who later appeared alone in a hallway as she was leaving, carrying what appeared to be a heavy suitcase, according to the prosecutor’s statement.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and Education Minister Pap Ndiaye have visited the girl’s school, and psychologists were dispatched to offer support to students and their parents.
French President Emmanuel Macron received the girl’s parents at the Elysee Palace on Tuesday and said he had expressed “condolences and offered solidarity and support in their terrible ordeal that upsets us all.”
Emmanuel Macron is coming under fire for immigration policies in the wake of the girl's death. Photo / AP
The president’s political rivals, meanwhile, lashed out at his centrist government and blamed its immigration policies for the girl’s death.
French media reports said Dahbia B was an immigrant from Algeria. She lived in the country illegally for three years, Veran said. In August, when she landed at Paris’s Orly airport, authorities noticed her flawed immigration status and issued her an order to leave French territory before letting her in, the government spokesman explained.
“The suspect in this barbaric act should not have been in our country,” Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Rally party, said Tuesday during a heated National Assembly session. Le Pen, who leads the largest opposition party in France’s most powerful house of parliament, demanded that Macron’s government put a stop to “uncontrolled immigration.”
Veran, the government spokesman, appealed for lawmakers to refrain from political bickering, saying Wednesday that Lola’s parents “ask us for collective support in what they are going through, without adding to their pain.”
“Like them, we want answers,” Veran said. “Like them, we want to punish with the needed tough stance warranted by atrocities that have been committed. It’s up to judicial authorities to do so.”
A silent march had been planned for Wednesday but was called off after a request from Lola’s family. However far-right politicians are now calling for a rally to be held on Thursday.
