French justice sentenced two teenagers to 10 years in prison for the March 2021 death of Alishaa classmate who was bullied, in a case that shocked public opinion in the country for its cruelty.
The Pontoise juvenile court, located northwest of Paris, imposed that sentence on Thursday on the defendants, a 16-year-old boy and a girl, for the “homicide” of the minor and not for “murder”, considering that premeditation could not be proven. In any case, the prosecution announced that it will appeal the ruling.
The family protested the measure. “It is not normal (…) They will be released from prison in 10 years. They have killed my daughter”the victim’s mother yelled Thursday.
The case began in March 2021. Alisha, a 14-year-old girl, died after the two defendants, whose names were not released because they were minors, They beat her and threw her into the Seine River.
The boy and the girl, in preventive detention for a year, they met Alisha in September 2020, at the beginning of the course at a vocational high school in Argenteuil (north-west of Paris).
The three quickly became friends. However, their relationship deteriorated, between romances and “trivialities” of adolescents, explained then the prosecutor of Pontoise.
From then on, according to what the French press reconstructs, he began a stage of strong bullying by the two young people against the victim. In February 2021, for example, some photos of Alisha in her underwear appeared on the Snapchat social network after her cell phone was hacked.
Added to this is a fight between the two teenagers and the boy’s anger for an insult against his deceased father.
“No expression of panic”
According to the prosecution, on the day of his death, the victim met with a classmate under the pillars of a viaduct of the A15 motorway, on a road that is certainly uninhabited, near the Seine river.
Minutes later, the accused boy approached and punched Alisha in the face. He pulled her hair and made her fall to the ground, he explained. Next, the two accused minors they grabbed the victim and threw her into the Seine with the aim of “eliminating the traces of the violence they had committed,” added the prosecution.
Back home, the teenager, his clothes covered in blood, explained what had happened to his mother, who notified the police.
Both defendants, who were a couple at the time, “they don’t show any expression of panic”, according to research. That day, after changing their clothes, they went to eat in Paris and visited a friend, who was not even told what had just happened that afternoon.
The autopsy revealed that cause of death was drowning. The bruises, although important, did not cause his death. In conclusion, Alisha was still alive when she was thrown into the Seine.
This crime shocked the country and brought up bullying on social media.
According to the Francetvinfo site, Alisha’s mother had reported the harassment of her daughter to the school. The management advised him to formalize the complaint and they planned to hold a disciplinary council. The girl died before she could carry it out.
At the time, nearly 2,000 people had marched in his memory days after the murder was discovered. According to her mother, Alisha was “very serious at school” and she dreamed of becoming an accountant.
With information from AFP
