Abderrahmane Khalid, 83, was tried for having killed his wife of 40 spade in 2018. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
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The rectangular white cardboard box, long and fine, sits in the middle of the courtroom, placed vertically against a table so as not to fall. On the left, the impassive face of Abderrahmane Khalid, 83, who had all the sentences of the world to climb the three steps, supported by the police, to climb into the accused box. On the right, on the t-shirts of his brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces that took place on the benches of the civil parties, the smiling face of Akila Cherrad, 73: the photo was taken a few months before his death.
The bailiff puts green latex gloves, opens the long cardboard box and takes out a spade, which he presents to lawyers, jurors, to the court. The president, Sylvie Gossese, passes her finger on the edge of the steel blade. On August 2, 2018 around 9:30 p.m., Abderrahmane Khalid seized this spade and gathered around forty – at least – blows on the skull, face and neck of Akila Cherrad in the garage of their Villemagne -L’Argentière pavilion (Hérault). Then he called the help: “I would like the police and the firefighters to arrive because I just kills my wife.” And he waited. Abderrahmane Khalid and Akila Cherrad have been married for fifty-four years.
The photos of the “major bone crash of almost all the bones of the face” and the “cranio-facial disjunction” described by the autopsy were spared the assistance, but at the sight of the 3D reconstruction From the victim’s skull on giant screens, it was understood that Abderrahmane Khalid had not exaggerated when he explained to the police that he had “smashed his wife. At the helm, a first medical examiner took ten minutes to list all the lesions. A second provided dental details: we found a crown of the victim in his bronchi, another embedded in his fractured palace.
“A life like everyone else”
At one time, Abderrahmane and Akila loved each other. For three days, from Wednesday 12 to Friday 14 October, the Hérault Assize Court tried to trace the history of this couple to understand how the situation had degenerated until the massacre. Both were born in Algeria, he in Constantine, she in Sétif, he arrived in France at 16, she at 5. They met in 1964 in Grenoble, and it was anything but an arranged marriage. Akila’s father had said to his daughter: “He’s a harki, he betrayed his country. If you marry this man, don’t come back to me anymore.” She married this man, who had made the choice of the France during the Algerian War. All his life, Abderrahmane has replenished pharmacies in medication. Akila worked for Boiron laboratories as soon as their three daughters, Malika, Sonia and Nabila, born between 1965 and 1970, were quite old.
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