A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her.
In 2021 Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected himself.
On May 4 of that year, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured petrol on her and set her on fire.
A neighbour hearing the screams tried to intervene but it was too late for Daoud. When her body was recovered, it was completely charred. She was 31 and a mother of three.
Boutaa, who filmed part of the horrific scene, was arrested shortly afterward.
“I wanted to burn her,” he told police after his arrest, “for all the things that she and the judiciary did”.
He denied any intention to kill his wife, saying he had wanted instead to “punish her”, burn her “a little” and make sure she would “keep marks”.
Boutaa, a builder, had been released from prison at the end of 2020 after serving time for choking his wife and threatening her with a knife.
He had already been accused of domestic violence against a previous partner.
The court issued a restraining order, saying he could not approach Daoud, but they started living together again until March 2021, when she filed another police complaint against her husband.
Investigators later found the handling of her complaint by a policeman — himself found guilty of domestic violence not long before — severely lacking, and opened an inquiry into a series of police “failures”.
The victim was not given a “serious danger phone” that allows women to alert the authorities directly, and her husband was not made to wear an electronic bracelet that could have allowed police to detect his movements in her vicinity.
The investigation resulted in sanctions against five police officers. The victim’s family has since also launched a case against the French state for “serious failures”.
Dozens of people demonstrated outside the courthouse Monday to protest against the handling of the case.
“We’re here mostly to speak out against the authorities, the government that fails to do its job,” said one demonstrator who declined to give her name. “Especially against the police who don’t protect women.”
According to French interior ministry figures, there were 96 cases of domestic femicide in 2023 in France, 19 percent fewer than the previous year.
