“I'll be happy to wear a mask.
I will also put on sunglasses, that will allow me to hide, to put some distance ”.
Carmen
(Editor's note: the first names have been changed)
, 54, will be from this Tuesday and for a month on the bench of civil parties of the Assize Court of Essonne to attend the trial of Aïssa Z., 45 years old, presented as "the rapist of the Sénart forest" or even "the rapist with a moped".
He is suspected of having, between 1995 and 2001, committed 34 rapes, attempted rapes or sexual assaults out of the 49 incidents recorded at the time in this peri-urban forest located 25 km from Paris.
Arrested in December 2015 in Roubaix (North) by investigators from the Versailles judicial police on the basis of new DNA analyzes, this bus driver, married and father of a child who was born shortly before his arrest, did not has since stopped shouting his innocence.
"He pretends to be a victim and it is not respectful of the real victims", answers Me François Friquet, lawyer in civil action.
“Aïssa has a lot of respect for them, reacts a relative of the accused.
He always said that these victims could have been his wife, sister, cousin… ”
READ ALSO>
"Bonbon", the alleged perpetrator of 34 rapes in the forest of Sénart, still denies
Carmen was assaulted on September 2, 1997 while she was jogging.
In 2016, she received a first letter from the public prosecutor then two other reminders to ask her to come forward after the arrest of Aïssa Z. "I had put this case in the back of my mind," she said today. 'hui to explain his reluctance at the start.
I had never told anyone about it.
Before the attack, I was enthusiastic, I was not afraid of anything.
I went out in the evening in Paris and I returned late by RER.
I was attacked at 12:30 pm next to my house… ”She adds:“ I was not thinking of negative things.
Now I am suspicious ”.
"An accent of the cities"
That day, she meets a man riding a black moped resembling "an old Peugeot 103".
He turned around and passed her before stopping 50 m further on.
When she gets up to him, he throws himself on her, grabs her by the hair and asks her for sexual favors.
She resists and bites a finger with her left hand until it blows.
But that does not cool the rapist who continues.
She tries to free herself and is caught.
Carmen still refuses to comply.
When she filed a complaint the same day at the Brunoy police station (Essonne), she said he was bleeding profusely.
The bloodstained T-shirt is placed under seal.
“What saved me was my athletic mind,” she analyzes.
I said to myself, I'm going to die but he won't get me, he won't rape me ”.
According to Carmen, the man was then between 20 and 30 years old.
He wore a black full-face helmet with an opaque visor.
He spoke "with a city accent."
All victims will say the same about his speech.
She also noted the presence of a thin wedding ring on her ring finger.
"I didn't build the family life I wanted to have"
"In the months that followed I was afraid he would recognize me if I saw him when I did not know his face," Carmen continues.
As soon as I found myself with a man, I wondered if it was not my attacker.
I changed my hairstyle, I curled it.
And I started to do sophrology ”.
No more jogging alone.
“I joined an athletics club to run in a group and I stopped going to the forest.
I returned there later with friends and family.
But I did not return to the path where I was attacked ”.
His relationships with men also suffer.
“I didn't build the family life I wanted to have, I had a child late,” she continues.
These robot portraits which had been made of the rapist of the Sénart forest on the basis of the descriptions provided by the victims had been plastered on the walls of the Draveil police school, very close to the scene of the facts.
DR
Suzanne, 46, also had a child.
A girl.
She confides that she is afraid that she will also one day be assaulted.
This policewoman was a student at the school for peacekeepers in Draveil at the time of the events.
The property is separated from the forest by a road.
“There was a composite sign posted in the school.
But we think that it only happens to others, ”she says.
On April 21, 1998, it was while she too was jogging that she was attacked, narrowly escaping rape.
The storyline is similar to what Carmen described.
The motorized two-wheeler is a Yamaha 50 cc Beluga bordeaux this time.
Shots.
Sexual demands.
And this threat: "Stop screaming or I'll kill you, I'll strangle you".
Suzanne's companion who was walking in the forest finally puts the helmeted aggressor to flight.
"I was not far from stopping it that day", regrets Suzanne.
In the following days, accompanied, she walks the aisles hoping to find the man and call him out.
In vain.
Essonne Newsletter
Every morning, the news of your department seen by Le Parisien
I'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers.
Learn more
In her life as a police officer, this affair marked her deeply.
Stationed in a police station in Essonne, she must one day take the complaint of a woman victim of rape: “It was very complicated.
I hadn't told anyone about it.
My colleagues were not aware ”.
In her private life too, Suzanne changes her habits.
“I started running in town and I developed hyper-vigilance.
I went to therapy.
When a colleague from the PJ Versailles called me to tell me that they had arrested him, I woke up.
I also said to myself,
it will be known
.
But my hierarchy was very discreet.
"
A "judicial assassination", according to a defense lawyer
During the confrontation which takes place on August 31, 2017, Suzanne claims to have recognized the voice of her attacker.
"We are going to put it back in front of the obvious," asserts Me Laurent-Franck Liénard, Suzanne's lawyer.
The evidence for the civil party and the prosecution, it is the DNA in kinship that allowed to identify it.
The genetic fingerprint of one of Aïssa Z's brothers being recorded, this is what allowed, in 2015, thanks to a new technique developed in a laboratory in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique) to consider him as the suspect. n ° 1.
But for the defense, that does not hold, as affirms Me Zineb Abdellatif, one of his lawyers who decided to boycott the hearing qualifying this trial of "judicial assassination".
In question, "a dependent instruction", "seals which disappear and reappear".
“My client's DNA was found but not that of one of the victims outside of the condom.
On the other hand, we have the DNA of an unknown woman, ”she asserts.
So many grievances pointed out in complaints filed by the accused from his cell, some of which were dismissed.
