Reunion: life for the murder of a woman whom the assassin took for “the devil”

The 33-year-old was sentenced to life for the 2018 murder of a student he stabbed and gutted “to save humanity”.

The Reunion Assize Court on appeal sentenced a 33-year-old man to life imprisonment on Friday for the May 2018 murder of a student he had stabbed and eviscerated, saying she was “the devil “.

Ridaï-Mdallah Mari was sentenced at first instance to 30 years’ imprisonment in February 2022. He appealed against this decision.

The life sentence pronounced Friday in Saint-Denis complies with the requisitions of the general counsel, Emmanuelle Barre.

“Great Savagery”

The facts, of “great savagery” according to the public prosecutor of Saint-Denis Eric Tuffery, had occurred five years ago, one night in May 2018, in the apartment occupied by the accused in a generally quiet area of ​​Sainte-Marie (north of the island).

The 19-year-old girl and her attacker had met at a bus stop shortly before the incident. On the evening of the tragedy she went for the first time to the man’s home.

Alarmed by the cries of the young girl and by the noise coming from the house, neighbors had warned the police.

A murder to “save humanity”

After his arrest, the man said he killed the girl “because she was the devil”. However, the psychiatrists then considered that there was no abolition or alteration of his discernment.

During his first trial, Ridaï-Mdallah Mari claimed to have killed the young girl “to save humanity”. “You will all go to hell,” he also threatened the court.

Thursday, on the third of the four days that his appeal trial lasted, the accused again launched: “I do not regret anything! If I had to do it again, I would do it again. I have no regrets for having killed the devil.”