On the Internet, his photo often circulates, embellished with the expression “tinder rapist”. What does Salim B., portrayed as ” a monster “ – an expression he uses himself? “I agree, sixteen complaints against me, it’s huge, it’s dizzying, it’s scary, I’ve been bad, these women must have felt used, but I didn’t rape anyone, I ‘am sure of it’, he defends himself, alone in a cafe in the north of Paris, this snowy April afternoon.
For the sake of the contradictory in this sprawling investigation, we had to meet this 36-year-old young man, who has no lawyer, knows his case inside out and believes that there are weaknesses in several of these complaints. He devotes whole days to caving in his computer, exploring all the digital traces that can invalidate the numerous statements of young women against him, and to make as many requests for additional investigations to justice.
With sixteen civil parties, Salim B. is indicted in the context of an open judicial investigation for “rape and sexual assault” since October 2016. An old case – from the time of the heyday of Tinder, before the movement Speech liberation #metoo – ” ongoing “ under investigation, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office, and still not referred to an assize court.
First imprisoned in Fleury-Mérogis until mid-2019, this former photographer is now under judicial supervision. He is prohibited from making live model images, must check in every week at the police station, but remains free to connect to dating applications to seduce other young women, and potentially reiterate the facts. For him, going to apps seems like a right, especially since he already has “lost two years and eight months” of his life in prison – “I didn’t hurt anyone, I don’t see why I would amputate my freedom. »
Erratic investigations
Since his release from a pre-trial detention devoted to reading Victor Hugo, Albert Cohen and to the frenzied study of his file, Salim B. promises that he no longer considers girls as ” objects ” and that he “pays much more attention to consent”. However, in the summer of 2021, a new rape complaint was filed against him. The police officers of 2and judicial police district (DPJ) in charge of the investigation, the investigating judge and the prosecution are notified. Nine months later, the young woman has just been heard a second time on her complaint.
You have 87.03% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.