In criminal matters, the statistics are as cold as they are unstoppable: in murder cases, the perpetrator generally gravitates to the entourage of the person killed. And it is even more blatant when the victim is a child. But how can we identify the torturer when we cannot put a name to a body? “A criminal investigation requires patience. You have to open doors and close them until you find the right track. And it can take time,” assures Rémy Maunier. This retired gendarmerie knows what he is talking about: in 1987, he was the head of the Orléans research section, in charge of investigations into the little martyrdom of the A10, which was a cold case for a long time.
For thirty years, the identity of this little girl with a mutilated body remained an enigma. In court records, his case is unique. No one reported his disappearance, or even recognized his face in the calls for witnesses. It was not until 2017 and an improbable fight between neighbors that “the little one on the highway” finally had an identity: Inass Touloub, 4 years old. And wait another decade for his parents to be judged. His mother, Halima El Bakhti, 72, will appear from this Monday before the Blois Assize Court for “acts of torture and barbarity leading to death without intention of causing it”. His father, Ahmed Touloub, for complicity.
It is an understatement to say that the investigation gave a hard time to all those who looked into it. In 1991, the first dismissal of the case was pronounced. The hundreds of avenues explored led to dead ends. The investigators have nothing, not even the beginning of a lead to identify the little girl. However, no one can bring themselves to abandon this issue.
In 1993, the prosecutor therefore decided to reopen the investigation and try a poker game: participate in the brand new TF1 show, Witness Number 1. Thousands of calls poured in, hundreds of leads were checked, but they all still led to walls. In 1997, another dismissal. This time, the case remained dormant for almost ten years. “It’s an investigation that has never been forgotten in a closet but we had to find a new approach, a reason to reopen it,” assures Georges Domergue, who was the first investigating judge in this case. There is, however, one imperative: not to miss the limitation period, ten years at the time.
And precisely in 2007, the state of science has nothing to do with that of 1987 or even 1997. Unlike in certain cases, the seals have been carefully preserved and can be analyzed again. Two DNAs were extracted but for ten years, the computer churned without finding a match. Until spring 2017: a new DNA was added to the national file, a man convicted after getting into a fight. No doubt, it is the victim's little brother. “Sometimes, you need a little bit of luck in an investigation: without this fight, the case would probably still be a cold case,” continues Rémy Maunier. But I was also relieved to tell myself that we had done our job well, that we hadn’t missed anything, we had to wait for science to progress”
From then on, another investigation begins, to trace the thread of Inass Touloub's short life. His parents - Ahmed Touloub, now 74 years old, and Halima El Bakhti, 72 years old - are the number one suspects. At the time of the events, the family, originally from Morocco, lived in Puteaux, in Hauts-de-Seine. Inass has two older sisters and three younger brothers, the eldest of whom was three years old (a last boy will be born later). To their great surprise, the investigators discovered that the little girl was not a ghost baby: she was born in Morocco in 1983, lived there for 18 months with her grandparents, before coming to France. She was registered with the civil registry and was listed on her parents’ passports. She was declared to the CAF up to ten years after her death and was even registered for the September 1987 start of the nursery school.
How can we explain that no one was worried? Certainly at the time, the absence of computerized files complicated the transmission of information but for Georges Domergue, “there were some misses”. “We could have succeeded earlier with more rigor,” believes the former magistrate. And to cite this improbable discovery made by journalists Jérémy Frey and Pierre-Antoine Souchard in their documentary “Inass, the little martyr of the A10”: during the program Témoin Numéro 1 in 1993, a neighbor of the Touloubs called the program. The gendarmes carried out checks but concluded that there was a false trail after confusing Inass Touloub with one of his brothers…
In June 2018, after a year of investigation, the parents of the little martyr, now separated, were arrested. “I’ve been waiting for you to come for thirty-one years,” assures Ahmed Touloub during his police custody. According to his account, his wife was violent with their daughters and even more so with Inass. He admits to having noticed traces of violence, in particular a burn with an iron, without ever intervening. By “cowardice”, he will say. On August 10, 1987, he returned around 10 p.m. He swears his daughter was already dead. His wife allegedly told him that she had fallen down the stairs. According to him, he went to the police station before turning back, for fear of the consequences. So he got behind the wheel with the swaddled body of his third daughter.
The two eldest, aged 10 and 6 at the time of Inass's death, broadly confirmed their father's account of the tragedy. Both describe a “suffering” mother, whose outbursts of violence contrast with unconditional love. That day, their father was absent. The eldest remembers seeing her mother at the top of the stairs, her sister unconscious at the bottom. She remembers the “rushed” departure. “There was an atmosphere… There was drama. » The memories of her younger daughter are more vague. She remembers telling her father that Inass was dead.
Both of them never talked about their sister's death with their parents, or with anyone for that matter. Their four brothers claim to have learned of the existence of this sister when their parents were arrested. Contacted, their lawyer did not respond.
Halima El Bakhti, after denying it in police custody, ended up admitting violence against Inass. She admitted to slapping but not biting. However, the little girl's body was covered in it: one of her nipples was torn off with her teeth, her face was so disfigured that the photos on the wanted posters had to be retouched. “I am not a dog,” she defends herself before the judge.
She explains her violence by her difficulty in establishing links with Inass upon her return from Morocco but also by black magic. “When I hit her, I become someone else, I don’t recognize myself… I don’t understand… I loved her when she was born,” she says during her interrogation. However, she denies having pushed him down the stairs and swears that the little girl was alive when they left by car, that she died during the journey. The autopsy did not clarify this point.
After multiple legal reversals, Halima El Bakhti will have to answer for these “voluntary, numerous and spread over time” acts which led to the death of her daughter. Her former husband is on trial for never having intervened despite his knowledge of the abuse inflicted. They face life imprisonment. Theoretically, because the court will have to take into account their age and their situation. Verdict expected on November 18.
