From a source close to the investigation, this man would be the ex-companion of a cousin of the victim, who herself had been placed in police custody on Tuesday.
On his instructions, the investigators discovered around 1:00 a.m. Thursday, “on the edge of a path” in an isolated place near La Grand Combe, the “body of a young girl who corresponds in all respects” to the description of Sihem, even if the scientific investigations will still have to formally confirm his identity, specified Ms. Gensac.
The man assured “to have killed the young girl within the framework of an argument related to their romantic relationship”, added the magistrate. He was charged and remanded in custody. The woman who was in custody at the same time as him was released.
“I assisted a man who decided to face his heavy responsibility in the disappearance of Sihem and put an end to an unbearable suspense for his relatives by guiding the investigators,” Jean-Marc Darrigade told AFP. the lawyer for the alleged murderer.
“Loved and appreciated by all”
“He knows that his fault is not forgivable but his silence would only have made it worse,” added Me Darrigade, whose client was initially to appear before the Gard Assize Court on Wednesday for armed robbery.
This man had been convicted five times for damage to property and eight times for acts related to driving a vehicle, according to Ms. Gensac.
He had notably served a 12-year prison sentence pronounced by the Assizes of the Gard for theft with a weapon and was under judicial supervision for a similar case, for which he was to appear again before the Assizes of the Gard on Wednesday.
Asking for respect for a “time of meditation” and evoking a young girl “loved and appreciated by all”, Sihem’s family assured “place(r) their full confidence in the judicial institution to know and understand the circumstances of his death”, according to a press release from his lawyers, Me Sara Benlefki and Mourad Battikh.
Sihem had not given any sign of life since leaving her home on the evening of January 25. Neither the overflights of the sector by helicopter, nor the use of tracking dogs, nor the searches carried out had made it possible to find her.
On Wednesday, the Nîmes prosecutor announced the opening of an investigation for kidnapping and forcible confinement following this disappearance. The young girl “had communicated for the last time with friends around midnight” on January 25, when she “was about to leave her home, probably to join a person of her acquaintance”, had then specified the magistrate.
The investigators had initially explored the trail of a possible kidnapping linked to facts to “obtain funds”.
The number of feminicides increased by 20% in France in 2021 compared to the previous year, with 122 women killed under the blows of their spouse or ex-spouse, against 102 in 2020, according to a report published in August 2022 by the Ministry of the Interior. The lower toll of 2020, with 102 women killed compared to 146 in 2019, had been exceptional, without it being known what role the periods of confinement and curfew played there.