‘Monster devil’ Algerian woman who raped and murdered 12-year-old Lola is jailed for life with no parole in France – after begging court for forgiveness

An Algerian woman who was found guilty of raping, torturing and killing a 12-year-old girl in France was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

Dahbia Benkired, 27, Algerian immigrantHe was described as a ‘monstrous devil’ by the family of his victim, Lola Daviet, as he received the harshest sentence France could give after four hours of jury deliberations.

The court ruled on a rare sentence due to the ‘extreme brutality’ of the crime, which the presiding judge described as ‘real torture’.

‘This decision will not bring you Lola back. “But we hope this is a step in your healing process,” he added, as the young girl’s distraught mother and her son embraced and cried at the courthouse.

Lola’s In October 2022, a dirty body was found in a suitcase in the lobby of the building where he lived in the French capital. His legs, feet, wrists and face were tied with tape, and he had at least 38 stab wounds on his body.

‘Benkired’s aim was to inflict severe physical and mental pain on his victim and to deny him all human dignity. This is the very definition of acts of torture and barbarism,” the attorney general said in a statement on Friday.

Before the guilty verdict, Benkired ended the hearing with a single sentence: ‘I ask for forgiveness, what I did was terrible’. He now has 10 days to appeal.

Before the final hearing began on Friday morning, dozens of people gathered in front of the courthouse and held banners saying “Death penalty saves lives” and “Let’s hang Dahbia, let’s save Lolas.”

The chief prosecutor said the killer should not have been in France after overstaying his student visa, but was left free to hunt Lola “for pleasure and the satisfaction of sexual urges”.

The horrific torture that 12-year-old Lola Daviet was subjected to by the Algerian immigrant who raped and murdered her was revealed in court during a six-day hearing

Addressing the jury, they added: ‘Today you have to try three crimes marked by particular cruelty and all punishable by life imprisonment.

‘These are crimes that have caused untold suffering to a family. ‘Dahbia Benkired is extremely dangerous and poses a maximum risk of re-offending.’

The attorney general called for a life sentence aimed at ‘protecting society from a woman who I firmly believe poses an extreme danger’.

The so-called ‘irreducible life sentence’ is the harshest sentence possible under the French Criminal Code and is frequently criticized by human rights institutions.

Lola’s mother, Delphine Daviet, 47, broke down in tears when she met Benkired in court on Wednesday. ‘Before this tragedy we had a very simple family life, very careful of each other,’ he said.

However, everything changed on October 14, 2022, when Lola was kidnapped from the apartment where she lived with her family and brother.

Recalling the last moments they spent together, Daviet said: ‘I kissed him and said, ‘See you later.’

‘Then he came across this thing; This evil beast.

‘I feel guilty, I couldn’t save my Lola. My wife and son also blame themselves a lot.’

Daviet’s husband, Johan Daviet, 49, died in February last year due to excessive drinking linked to a family tragedy.

“He drank from morning to evening,” he said. He ‘died of grief’, devastated by his ‘demons’, he added.

Before he died, Johan had posted a letter on the door of Benkired’s apartment in which he raped, tortured and killed the young girl.

‘Darling, I still can’t understand why so much cruelty and barbarism is being done to you, you are so well-intentioned.’ “I can’t wait to see you again,” he wrote on the note. ‘Your father who loved you all his life’.

Delphine had previously called on the courts to ‘do whatever it takes to keep this person in prison for life’, adding: ‘Give nothing but life imprisonment.’

Benkired, who was homeless and, reportedly making money as a prostitute at the time, forced the boy to have sex with her “for his own pleasure” before partially decapitating Lola and stuffing her body into a suitcase.

Speaking in court on Wednesday, Benkired gave a chilling account of how that fateful day unfolded and revealed he even begged not to harm the woman before being taken to Lola’s home.

In this CCTV footage, Lola is still wearing a white coat and is seen following Benkired into an apartment building with what appears to be a school bag.

Lola’s brother, Thibault Daviet, and Lola’s mother, Delphine Daviet-Ropital, arrive at the Paris High Criminal Court for Benkired’s trial on October 24, 2025.

Benkired argued with his ex-partner, the ‘love of his life’ ‘I told myself I was going to hurt someone,’ Mustafa M. recalled.

The murderer told the court that he planned to shoot Mustafa with the gun he claimed was found in his home.

‘I wanted to hurt her, but not little Lola. “He hurt me so much that I wanted revenge, I hated him,” she said. ‘I love him so much but I wanted to hurt him. He had a gun at home, I was planning to shoot him, but I wasn’t thinking of killing him.’

However, just 15 minutes after the two had a fight, the enraged Lola crossed paths on her way home from school.

‘I passed a woman with a baby. And then Lola. I asked him to open the door for me because I didn’t have a badge,’ Benkired told the court.

Lola then helped the woman carry her luggage to her apartment, while Benkired admitted that he already knew at that moment that she was planning to harm him.

He pulled Lola’s arm and led her into the elevator leading to his apartment, pleading: ‘Ma’am, please don’t hurt me.’ Chillingly, Benkired said in response he told the boy ‘don’t worry, I won’t hurt you’.

When Lola arrived at Benkired’s home, he told the court he asked her to undress and take a shower, at which time he accepted Lola looked ‘frightened’.

Benkired described how he sexually assaulted her and ‘slammed her head against the shower wall with my hand’ and insisted it ‘wasn’t really hard’.

‘He turned into a ghost in the shower for me. Benkired remembered that he said nothing, did not speak. ‘When I taped him I was told he was still alive. ‘For me he was dead’.

After several minutes of slow agony, the boy choked to death on the tape. There were also traces of stab wounds on his body.

“Lola has numerous wounds on her body, at least 38. At least two scissor blows pierced her ribcage, causing unimaginable pain,” the attorney general said in a statement on Friday.

At Monday’s hearing, several family members had to leave court as images of Lola’s injuries were shown; Other shocking details came to light, including that he had ‘visible traumatic injuries’ to his genitals.

Benkired moved to France in 2013 when he was 14, but was subject to a deportation order after overstaying his student visa.

According to the coroner’s examination, the 12-year-old girl was ‘entered vaginally and anally’ while she was still alive.

However, throughout his trial, Benkired admitted to forcing oral sex on Lola but denied any act of penetration despite forensic findings.

Benkired said that after forcing Lola to have sex with him, he “started slapping her because he was afraid to tell his family.” ‘I took out all my hatred on him… Either way, I knew he would die.’

‘I didn’t want to kill him but I wanted to hurt someone. But since I raped her, it would be better if I killed her,’ said Benkired.

schoolgirl He had 38 stab and scissor wounds on his back and neck before he died of asphyxia, a doctor told the High Criminal Court in Paris on Monday.

The doctor said, ‘There were hemorrhagic traumas in various parts of the body, especially in the child’s private parts.’

It was stated that Lola also had a ‘large wound’ on her face, a cut neck and a cut on her back, probably caused by knives, and ‘her head was also partially cut off’.

As images of Lola’s injuries were shown to the court on the second day of Benkired’s trial, the doctor added: “There is physical, psychological and moral suffering.”

‘Asphyxia is very worrying, it goes beyond physical pain. There was probably one or more blows to the head that caused physical pain.’

But on Wednesday, Benkired said he brutally stabbed the girl ‘after starting to treat her like a sheep’.

‘The skin was hard like a sheepskin,’ said the defendant, adding that at this point Lola wrote the numbers 0 and 1 on her feet.

CCTV footage shows the moment Dahbia Benkired opens the bag she placed Lola in while sitting in a crowded bar in Paris

According to respected French newspaper Le Monde, Benkired told investigators that he saw a ‘ghost’ in Lola and that he acted out of ‘fear’ of this ‘evil incarnation’. The investigation revealed that he had been searching for witchcraft on the internet days before the murder.

On Wednesday, Nicolas Estano, 47, a clinical psychologist and expert witness, told the court that although ‘sexual sadism is something that is quite rare’ he believed Benkired’s actions revealed ‘he took almost sexual pleasure in the abuse inflicted on someone’.

After the murder, Benkired tied the boy’s legs, feet, ankles and face with tape and stuffed his body into a plastic suitcase.

Benkired then dragged her body through Paris in a plastic crate and dumped it on the street, where it was then found by a homeless man.

But CCTV previously seen by the court showed the moment Benkired opened the bag containing the girl’s body in a bar on Rue Manin, just hours after the murder.

He arrived at the restaurant with two standard-sized suitcases and a much larger bag.

In the footage, the woman is seen chatting with a man as the large trunk that prosecutors said contained Lola’s body lay on the tile floor next to her.

At one point Benkired pointed to the bag and opened it slightly, as if to show its contents. The man touched the lid briefly and looked inside before standing up. It’s unclear whether he realized what the bag was carrying.

A police investigation later revealed that a pair of scissors, an oyster knife and an IKEA knife with traces of blood were found in Benkired’s flat.

Benkired moved to France in 2013 when he was 14, but was subject to a deportation order after overstaying his student visa in August 2022, just two months before Lola’s murder.