On the evening of January 20, in the Part-Dieu district of Lyon, when the police arrived in the B family's accommodation after inspecting the apartments in the building, they discovered Kenza hidden under blankets, lying on a mattress on the floor.
The young girl, haggard, swollen face and body, cropped head, is in a state of shock.
To the police officers who had come to deliver her, she recounts having been kidnapped the day before at her home in Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), tied up, gagged, thrown in the trunk of a car and transported to Lyon.
There, she discovers that her captors are none other than her own parents and her younger brother.
In Lyon, in the family apartment, Kenza will suffer more than 24 hours of violence, beatings, humiliations, threats, deprivation of food ...
A month and a half after the incident, the 20-year-old woman is still in a state of shock.
She nervously removes and puts on the wig she must now wear to hide her roughly shaved head and recounts, in a mixture of fear and anger, her descent into hell.
Last May, feeling oppressed by a family whose traditionalist values she did not share, Kenza left the family home without warning.
"I am a good living and I had the impression of being in prison at home, it is as if I had an electronic bracelet, not the right to go out alone", says the young woman.
With the money accumulated during confinement by selling cooked meals, Kenza jumps in a TGV and disembarks in Lille.
“There I had a great time,” she admits, “I made up for lost time”.
In Lille, she meets the nightlife.
And that of the escort-girls.
"I liked it, that's how I started", simply confides the young woman who started to sell her charms occasionally at the same time as she attended high school to try to retake her baccalaureate.
A 24 hour ordeal
But Kenza does not forget his family.
She calls her mother from time to time and goes back and forth to Lyon to visit her.
But the atmosphere is tense.
"After the All Saints holidays, they did not want to let me go back, they refused to let me go back to school, I was almost confined, watched all the time".
New fugue therefore, this time with an installation in the Paris region where the young woman resumes her libertine life.
During a visit in December, on the platform of the Part-Dieu station, the departure of Kenza gives rise to a real psychodrama.
"My parents had confiscated my identity card and when I left, my mother tried to prevent me from taking the train, the police had to intervene."
The police advise him to file a complaint, but Kenza, in a hurry to escape family pressures, prefers to jump into the first TGV and regain her freedom.
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On January 19, at the end of the afternoon, after spending the day watching series with his friends, Kenza, with 20 euros in his pocket and his phone charged at 10%, goes down to buy pizzas and cigarettes.
“On my way home, my arms full, I came across two hooded people hidden behind the front door of the building, and another, younger, facing me.
I was punched in the face.
I fell for nothing.
They then tied me up with ropes, taped me up, put under a blanket, carried and threw me in the trunk of a car with a man watching me ”.
Kenza thus finds himself on board towards the unknown.
On the way, the sound indications of the GPS make him understand that the vehicle is heading towards Lyon and that his captors could be his parents ... Suspicions confirmed when the car rushes into the garage of the building on rue Baraban, or Kenza is transported "like a drug package", after making sure that the way is clear.
In the family apartment, Kenza's ordeal will continue for more than 24 hours.
“I asked to go to the bathroom, they told me to do it on me,” she says, “I asked to take a shower, it was no.
I asked to eat.
It was no.
There they continued to humiliate me.
They took my phone, tied me to a chair with tape, yelled at me.
They reproached me for no longer being a virgin, asked me if I was planning to pursue a career as an escort, if I was doing it for fun or for money, they constantly hit me in turn, beatings, slaps, until 2 a.m.
I couldn't defend myself.
I will remember it all my life… ”.
"They wanted to marry me and bring me back to Algeria"
Kenza's ordeal resumed with a vengeance the next morning with a wake-up call from his younger brother and another bondage.
"They shaved me rudely, and continued to hit me and insult me all day," says again, the tight throat, the young woman, "they said they wanted to lock me in a country house and me. bring food once a week.
They told me that I had looked for all that.
That in our religion, we must be married.
They wanted to marry me and bring me back to Algeria ”.
His torturers will even call his friend from Paris on Snapchat to demand a ransom of 20,000 euros for his freedom.
The same friend, who, with his neighbor, helped alert the police to his kidnapping.
It is thanks to their report and the demarcation of his phone, that they managed to locate the young victim in the third arrondissement of Lyon.
In the wake of the January 20 arrests, Kenza's parents, but also his brother, sister and a close relative of the family were indicted for "arrest, kidnapping, kidnapping and arbitrary detention, committed in a meeting".
His brother was imprisoned, the other members of the group placed under judicial supervision.
"These are extremely serious facts that are part of a context of religious radicalization," said David Metaxas, lawyer for the victim, "it is now necessary that justice provides a rapid response to the height of the facts as well as protective measures" .
Contacted several times the lawyer of his parents did not follow up.
Kenza, she always says she fears reprisals from her family, but others as well.
"In this city, everywhere, every day, I am reproached for having sent my family to prison, for not having a heart," she confides.
"Today, I try to forget, but I lost everything, including my family, it will be very hard for me".
She is impatiently awaiting a trial which will enable her, she hopes to turn the page: “Afterwards, I am thinking of leaving France, changing my name, settling far away and never coming back.
My mother is a submissive and beaten woman, if she accepts this life, it's her problem, but I don't want this life ”.