A woman who raped and murdered 12 year-old Lola Daviet in Paris has been handed a rare whole-life sentence in a case that has shocked France.
Dahbia Benkired, aged 27, must spend at least 30 years in prison after a panel of judges and a jury decided to impose the country’s harshest possible penalty.
A whole-life term is extremely rare in France and Benkired is the first woman to receive it.
Those who have been given the sentence include serial killer and rapist Michel Fourniret and jihadist Salah Abdeslam, who took part in the 2015 Paris attacks which killed 130 people.
Lola was murdered in October 2022. Her body was discovered in a plastic storage box in the courtyard of the building where she lived in north-eastern Paris.
Benkired is an Algerian immigrant who was under orders to leave the country. French right-wing and far-right politicians have seized on the case.
Lola’s mother Delphine Daviet and her brother Thibault were in court to hear the verdict. Her father Johan Daviet died in 2024, aged 49.
The prosecutor in trial had argued for Benkired to received the longest sentence possible. Benkired was examined by psychiatric experts and found to have “psychopathic” traits but otherwise sane.
The prosecutor told a panel of three judges and six jurors: “Make no mistake no drug treatment can fundamentally transform Ms Benkired’s personality. When there is no illness, there is no treatment.”
Before jurors began their deliberations on Friday, Benkired told the court: “I ask for forgiveness and what I did is horrible.
“That’s all I have to say.”
