A 45-year-old Ivorian migrant who enforced an extreme, isolating form of Islam on four women and nearly 30 children in France has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for raping his partners and violently abusing the children in his control.
Held in pretrial detention since 2022, the man was convicted of 21 charges, including spousal rape, violence against minors, and acts of torture or barbarity. Jurors at the Assize Court in Gers found that he created a climate of “widespread violence” inside a secluded house where the women and children lived in near-total isolation under his authority. Some 28 of the 29 children were identified as victims.
Throughout the trial, the defendant remained silent and even ordered his court-appointed lawyer not to defend him, Le Progres reported. He denied all wrongdoing and disputed being the father of almost all the children, though investigators said the children themselves consistently described him as their father or as a father figure. No DNA testing was carried out because he refused, and no civil party to the proceedings formally requested it.
Prosecutors described a household ruled by coercion under the threat of violence. The man was said to have stripped the home of furniture, sealed windows “to prevent the devil from entering,” and imposed a rigid religious routine.
Court documents cited by AFP detailed beatings with hands, feet, and objects such as a metal pipe seized from the home. Two very young children were subjected to treatment classified as torture: They were allegedly lifted by their ears until they bled and forcibly submerged in water to silence them.
The abuse spanned more than a decade. According to La Dépêche du Midi, the indictment outlined several periods: the torture of two minors from 2020 to 2021, rapes of partners from 2008 to 2022, and violence against children in 2020-2021. The women and children lived in complete isolation for years, allowed outside only for school runs to Nogaro each morning in two minivans.
The situation came to light in early 2022 when one of the women managed to flee and alert the authorities. The man was arrested in April that year, and 27 minor children were placed into care before later being reunited with their mothers.
Three former partners, who had also been accused of violence against minors or failing to report crimes, were acquitted. Around 30 witnesses, including psychologists and social workers, testified in a seven-day hearing described by prosecutors as one of the most intense cases the court has faced in years.
The defendant, born in the Ivory Coast and living in France since the age of 16, maintained his silence throughout. His 30-year sentence, with a two-thirds security period, is among the heaviest available short of life imprisonment.
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