Salim Berrada was kind enough to define himself, during the two weeks of his trial, as a “cad”A ” self-centered “A ” arrogant “A “asshole”A “manipulator” to behavior “worse than immoral: abject”. Salim Berrada is now, in the eyes of the courts, a rapist.
The Paris criminal court sentenced this former fashion photographer, Friday March 29, to eighteen years of criminal imprisonment – with a two-thirds security period – for twelve rapes and three sexual assaults, committed between 2014 and 2016 in his studio du 20e district of Paris, on young women who had gone to his house thinking of carrying out a shooting. Many of them are certain that they have been drugged without their knowledge. Salim Berrada faced a maximum of twenty years. Nineteen were required.
The 38-year-old accused was accused of additional rape and sexual assault, involving two young women who never came to the hearing, and for which, due to lack of sufficient evidence, he was acquitted. Salim Berrada, of Moroccan nationality, was finally banned from French territory. Then, the president of the court, Thierry Fusina, ended the hearing, and ” THANKS ! » moved and applause erupted from the benches of the civil parties.
The “bunker of his lies”
After having already followed the entirety of the debates, around ten of them came to watch the verdict, grabbing each other’s hands and shoulders. They burst into tears at the announcement of the sentence imposed on their rapist, before showing a broad smile and falling into each other’s arms. These young women did not know each other when the trial opened; between them, a bond was forged day after day. Some went to thank the general advocate, Philippe Courroye, at length. Others promised themselves out loud: “Of course we will be there if he appeals” – the accused can do so within ten days.
Three meters from these manifestations of joy and relief, Salim Berrada, impassive, did not seem particularly overwhelmed by his fate. He was even seen joking with his lawyers once the sentence was pronounced, as if the “bunker of his lies” – formula of the advocate general – in which he locked himself throughout the procedure and the hearing also protected him from the shock of the verdict, which the president of the court justified in a few words by “the extreme seriousness of the facts”their “serial character” according to a “particularly elaborate procedure”their “multiplication in an increasingly short time”And “the importance of moral damage among victims, despite the many years that have passed”.
You have 50.2% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.