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‘I can never forgive her’: Arab man cleared after wrongful conviction for rape

French judges believed the pretty blond girl from a ‘good’ family, not the dropout

Farid El Haïry and his lawyer Frank Berton leave the court of review which annulled Mr El HaÏry erroneous conviction for rape on December 15th. Photograph: Agnès Dherbeys/MYOP for Le Monde

Lara Marlowe's face
Lara Marlowe in Paris
Fri Dec 16 2022 - 18:59

Farid El Haïry was 17 years old when the Douai criminal court convicted him of sexually assaulting and raping a 14-year-old girl. The case seemed a sad example of social determinism in the northern French town of Hazebrouck.

The girl, identified by French media as Julie D, was the child of affluent parents who employed 50 people in a family business. Her older brothers were bound for university.

Farid El Haïry’s father was a Moroccan factory worker. His French mother held a low-paying job in a school. They lived in a small house next to a housing project. Farid’s eldest brother worked in the factory with his father. A second brother, a drug addict, was in prison. Farid dropped out of school at age 16.

On December 15th, 1998, a woman gendarme arrived at the comfortable home of Julie D to receive the girl’s testimony. In graphic detail, the girl described two encounters with El Haïry and his “Arab friends”; a sexual assault in the spring of that year, followed by a rape that summer. She said she waited months to tell her family because she did not want to upset her mother. Her parents notified police.

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A gynecologist and psychologist confirmed that Julie D was no longer a virgin and that her testimony was “credible”.

El Haïry denied the allegations, saying he had never had sexual relations. The gendarmes who questioned him noted that he was “aggressive and arrogant”. The court psychologist found him “defensive, disillusioned and uncommunicative”. He spent just under a year in prison.

At the trial in December 2003, judges believed the pretty blond girl from a “good” family, not the Arab dropout. El Haïry was condemned to five years in prison, of which four years and two months were a suspended sentence. Since he had already served nearly one year, he did not return to prison. Le Monde’s justice correspondent, Pascale Robert-Diard, suspects the judges handed down a light sentence because they doubted the veracity of Julie D’s testimony.

El Haïry’s parents were deemed responsible for their minor son’s behaviour and condemned to pay €7,000 in damages to Julie D. His name was placed on the watchlist for sexual offenders and he was required to report to the gendarmerie once a year.

Unknown to El Haïry, Julie D in 2013 told her parents that her older brother had repeatedly raped her. She said she had lied about El Haïry solely because her boyfriend was afraid of him.

After years of psychotherapy, Julie D wrote to the prosecutor of Douai on October 23rd, 2017. “I confess that I lied. Monsieur Farid El Haïry is guilty of nothing and never committed acts of sexual aggression or raped me ... I was the victim of repeated incest on the part of my older brother, between the age of eight and 12 years.”

The letter went unanswered. Julie D wrote a second time, in November 2018. Another year passed before she was finally summoned to the police commissariat.

In her 2019 affidavit, Julie D said that before the trial, “I considered suicide, or denouncing my brother. I maintained my accusations against Farid to protect my family. I cried a lot when I told about the sexual assault and the rape, because I knew what it was like; I had lived through it.” She felt sorry for El Haïry’s family, she said. “I told myself that ... another family was paying instead of my family.”

It took five years after Julie D’s first letter to the prosecutor’s office for police to notify El Haïry, “We have proof of your innocence”. They had sent letters to the wrong address. “I pay my taxes. I work. I am a trade union representative. They could have found me!” he complained.

A review hearing finally took place on December 8th. “All I ask is that the justice system recognise my innocence quickly,” El Haïry told the court. “My parents are very ill, in palliative care, and I just want them to hear that I am innocent, because they never doubted me.”

Regarding Julie D, El Haïry said, “No one should live through such things ... but destroying my family to protect her own was ignoble. I can never forgive her.”

On December 15th, 24 years to the day after Julie D’s first affidavit, the court of review annulled El Haïry’s conviction. “Nothing is left of the charges against Monsieur Farid El Haïry,” the judge said. “The affair is over, and this decision cleanses you of all accusations.”

Farid El Haïry wept in court. It was only the 12th time since 1945 that France has reversed an erroneous conviction.

Julie D has filed a suit against her brother. Farid El Haïry intends to sue Julie D for false accusations, and demand reparations from the state.