Man jailed for 19 years after murdering prostitute
Published: Monday, Dec 4th 2023, 19:20
Updated At: Monday, Dec 4th 2023, 19:21
Zurück zu Live Feed
On Monday, the Geneva Criminal Court sentenced a man to 19 years in prison for the murder of a prostitute. The 43-year-old will then be kept in custody. The defendant's lawyers have announced that they will appeal against the sentence.
The judges came to the conclusion that the defendant was the main perpetrator. The idea of robbing the prostitute with the help of a young accomplice had come from him alone. "He was the organizer and leader," the court emphasized.
The crime dates back to 2019. The man pretended to be a client in order to break into the victim's apartment. After the prostitute had been maltreated with pepper spray, she was tied up with electric cables. To prevent her from screaming, the accused placed a pillow in front of her face. According to the court, this led to the woman's death.
The two accomplices then packed the body in a suitcase and transported it by cab to Evian in France. They burned the body and buried it in a forest in the municipality of Marin.
Defendant denied guilt
The judges did not believe the defendant when he claimed that he was not present when the prostitute was killed and blamed the murder on his younger accomplice. In general, the court found that the credibility of the defendant's statements was very low. He had changed his version several times, depending on what was introduced into the files.
The judges described the defendant's actions as "heinous and particularly vile". The victim suffered a gruesome death after suffocating for a long time. The defendant's behavior after the crime was characterized by "terrible coldness" and "shocking" recklessness. After disposing of the body, he flirted with a woman on the internet, among other things.
The court also found that his cooperation in the proceedings had been abysmal. Guided solely by his own objectives, the accused had denied the majority of the facts. He had shown no insight whatsoever.
His extensive criminal history also did not speak in the defendant's favor when the verdict was reached. Before the murder of the prostitute, the defendant had already committed a series of violent robberies. The judges did not accept any mitigating circumstances.
High risk of relapse
A psychiatric report emphasized the defendant's high risk of reoffending. The judges used this to justify the imposition of custody.
The court was of the opinion that there was no explanation for the defendant's criminal drift. As the adopted son of a Vaud notary, he enjoyed the attention of his mother and sister. He had an education and spoke and wrote French very well and could even cope with Spanish, it was said.
Last week, the public prosecutor Frédéric Scheidegger had demanded a life sentence for the defendant as well as his custody. Defense lawyers Yoann Lambert and Guglielmo Palumbo stated that their client would appeal against the criminal court's verdict.
The accused's young accomplice had already been tried in France at the beginning of the year. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
©Keystone/SDA
German 
English 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic