A 25-year-old homeless Algerian migrant has been arrested and charged for allegedly kidnapping, beating and raping a 49-year-old French woman in Saint-Herblain, near Nantes, after she worked with the man “for years” to help him.
The victim was raped in an ordeal that lasted from Friday evening all the way into Saturday morning, with the man forcibly keeping her inside the apartment until she managed to escape and alert police.
Prosecutors say the man broke into her home with a knife and held the victim captive. The victim’s husband and children were not home during the incident.
The homeless migrant was arrested inside the victim’s home on Saturday morning and was held in custody over the weekend. On Monday, he was brought before a judge to be indicted.
“Sometimes I control myself, sometimes I don’t control myself,” he told the judge during his indictment.
The woman told police that she had worked with the man for years trying to help him through her aid work, according to French news outlet Actu 17.
The man is well known for various property crimes and for being violent with two other women, according to a police source speaking with French newspaper Le Figaro. He has four convictions in total but has never been deported.
The victim is known to work for an association that supports those facing poverty, with the woman meeting the 25-year-old alleged rapist while he was “in a time of need.”
“What is described by the victim is unspeakable,” a source close to the victim told Presse Ocean news outlet. The victim was ordered to stay home for 10 days due to the injuries she sustained during the brutal rape and kidnapping.
Good Samitarians often targeted
The news follows a trend of good Samaritans who take migrants into their homes or work with migrants being targeted for rape and murder. Last year, an Afghan migrant was convicted of nearly killing a mother and her daughter in a stabbing attack after the 16-year-old rejected his desire to enter a relationship; he is currently standing trial in a German court for his alleged crime. Prosecutors say the 27-year-old man, Fuwad O., who had claimed refugee status, was welcomed as a friend by the mother and daughter in the German city of Speyer, but when the 16-year-old daughter turned down his advances, he stabbed her in a rage.
Also last year, a failed Iranian asylum seeker was sentenced to prison after brutally murdering a frail 87-year-old woman who took him into her home in the English county of North Yorkshire.
Another murder in 2023 saw an Albanian migrant kill his French host over an argument over religion and then send a photo of the murder scene to an acquaintance over Snapchat.
In yet another incident in 2023, an Algerian woman stabbed her host three times in the throat for unknown reasons outside Paris, resulting in the death of the French citizen.
In 2023, a pro-migrant French activist, the 23-year-old Océane Decan, who is well known for her extreme social media presence and radical activities, said she was “shocked” to see her migrant rapist on the streets so soon after she was raped by him. The man was unemployed and homeless, and raped her at knife-point.
In 2022, a 31-year-old Afghan national was convicted for the stabbing murder of a septuagenarian killed in his Paris home in the 19th district of the French capital, with the victim being stabbed 30 times. The Afghan man was reportedly allowed to stay with the host despite a record of sexual assault, although it is unclear if the victim was aware of his past crimes.
In 2020, the head of a pro-migrant organization was murdered in his sleep by a 20-year-old Afghan man he had taken into his home. He beat the victim to death with an iron rod.
In 2019, 61-year-old Patricia H., a volunteer at a refugee center in Hanover who gave asylum seekers German lessons, was murdered after being suffocated with duct tape. Faried A., a 32-year-old asylum seeker whose asylum application had been rejected, was accused by prosecutors of murdering her to steal the woman’s money.