jugé pour avoir tué son épouse de neuf coups de couteau
The facts take place on Monday, October 21, 2019, in the early afternoon, in a building on rue du Docteur-Schweitzer, in the Grand-Parc district, in Bordeaux. When the police arrive on the scene, Safia Mohammedi is quickly identified and, very quickly, suspicion falls on her husband Merzouk Oudjdi, aged 41.
The couple have been separated since the summer of 2017 but the husband does not want to hear about a divorce and regularly comes to the Grand-Parc apartment to see the four children from their union, aged 2.4 at the time. , 9 and 10 years old.
The knife was hidden
Two complaints of domestic violence were filed in 2017 and 2019. Witnesses say that “Safia was tired of seeing her husband knocking on the door and that she was afraid of him”. Neighbors even say that the husband spends whole nights on the landing, in front of the apartment, lying on a cardboard box.
On October 21 at midday, Merzouk Oudjdi is still there. He rings the doorbell, to no avail. He therefore waits sitting on the stairs, at the foot of the elevator, the return of his wife who arrives around 2:30 p.m. The dialogue is cut short and Safia Mohammedi asks him to leave the premises. Furious, the husband goes to a closet near the door of the apartment and grabs a knife with a 20 centimeter blade that he had hidden in this place a few days earlier. His wife screams for help and tries to escape down the stairs. But she is caught and beaten.
“He arrived in France in 2016 to please his wife and promise a bright future to his children”
Merzouk Oudjdi will be arrested the next day in the evening with the assistance of the Raid police officers. He lived with an acquaintance in Lormont. If he tried to deny the obvious at first during his hearing by the investigators, he had to resolve to recognize the facts, in the face of overwhelming evidence.
You have to leave France
Merzouk Oudjdi left school at 11 and worked in odd jobs before becoming a cook in Algeria. He arrived in France in 2016 to please his wife and promote a bright future for his children. But things didn’t go as planned. Installed in the North after having obtained a visa for six months for the whole family, he moved to Gironde. The couple call 115 and are accommodated at the reception center for asylum seekers (CADA) in Cenon. The situation is further complicated when Merzouk Oudjdi finds himself under the influence of an obligation to leave the territory while his wife manages to obtain asylum and undertakes socio-professional integration procedures.
Adrift, Merzouk Oudjdi committed the irreparable but he denies having premeditated his gesture. Before the Assize Court which is judging him this week, he will be assisted by Mare Maud Sécheresse, Margaux Castex and Manon Grimaud.