Eight suspects have been indicted by a French court in connection with allegations that two 13-year-old girls had been lured on social media, locked in a cellar, and gang-raped, with some of the abuse also being filmed.
The gang rapes of the two young teens are said to have taken place at the end of October of 2020 when the teens were lured on the social media platform Snapchat to Paris and then to the Parisian suburb of Sarcelles.
The pair got into a vehicle, where one of the girls was sexually abused, before being locked in a cellar, where it is alleged the suspects took turns raping and sexually abusing the two children, French broadcaster BFMTV reports.
Some of the abuse is also said to have been captured on video before the two 13-year-olds were able to escape from the cellar through a window the day after being abducted.
After escaping, the two girls were able to report the incident to the police, who discovered seven different genetic profiles of men through forensic examination of the victims and were able to identify and arrest the suspects starting in November 2020 and ending in February of this year.
The eight suspects in custody have claimed that the sex with the two girls was consensual and that they believed the girls were at least 16 or 17 years old at the time of the incident.
One of the young men, a 19-year-old, was denied a request for release after 15 months in pre-trial detention and has been convicted of crimes six times in the past, including violent robbery. He was also shot in the head previously at a drug deal in a case of attempted murder.
Currently, five of the suspects said to be in their twenties, are in prison, while two others have been placed under judicial supervision. If found guilty they could face up to twenty years in prison.
The indictments come just months after French police arrested a man, said to be a radical Islamic extremist, who was accused of kidnapping a 15-year-olf Iraqi girl and raping her in his home over a period of several days.
The girl was rescued by a neighbour of the man who claimed the teen also displayed signs that she had been physically abused and strangled.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.