The main suspect in the murder of PhilippineTaha O., was indicted in Paris on Wednesday by an examining magistrate on charges of “murder accompanied by another crime”.which makes him “life imprisonment”.said the Paris public prosecutor. Also charged with recidivist rape, Taha O. is currently appearing before a liberty and custody judge, who will decide whether or not to remand him in custody. In the box, the Moroccan appeared stooped, his gaze fixed on the ground, before the magistrate pronounced the case closed to the public.

He had been handed over by Switzerland to the French authorities earlier in the day, the Figaro a source close to the case, confirming a report from BFMTV . Interviewed on Monday by the Geneva public prosecutor’s office, the 22-year-old Moroccan finally agreed to a simplified extradition procedure, after initially refusing. He had the choice between extradition “simplified” extraditionfast, and extradition “ordinary”longer.

Philippine, a 19-year-old student at Paris-Dauphine University, disappeared on Friday September 20 after her lunch break. The next day, her lifeless body was found half-buried in the Bois de Boulogne, not far from her university. One suspect, Taha O., was arrested on September 24 in Geneva.in Switzerland. A judicial investigation has been opened against him for “murder, accompanied or followed by another crime, rape, theft and fraud”..

Already convicted of rape and under OQTF

This crime aroused immense emotion in France and provoked heated debate. In late summer 2019, shortly after his arrival in France, the suspect raped a 23-year-old student in a forest in Taverny (Val-d’Oise). In October 2021, after two years in pre-trial detention, Taha O. was sentenced by the Val-d’Oise juvenile assize court to seven years in prison. In June 2024, after his release from prison, he was placed in an administrative detention center (CRA) in Metz. At the same time, the Yonne prefecture issued him with an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF), and the French authorities in Morocco requested a consular laissez-passer.

September 3rd, a liberty and custody judge authorized his release from detention.while recognizing a risk of “reiteration of criminal acts”.. The Moroccan was then placed under house arrest in a hotel in the Yonne region, which he never visited. On September 4, Morocco sent a consular pass to France, allowing Taha O. to be deported, but by then he had vanished into thin air. The lifeless body of Philippine was found less than three weeks later.