The trial of the parents of Inass Touloub — the girl known in France as the "little unknown of the A10" — continued into its second day on Tuesday at the court in Blois, according to ladepeche.fr. The proceedings concern a case that began on 11 August 1987, when the child's body was found in a ditch alongside the A10 motorway. Her mother, Halima E., 72, is charged with torture and acts of barbarity resulting in death and is present in court; her father, Ahmed Touloub, 74, faces a charge of complicity.
Why it matters
The case went unsolved for decades, and the trial is being treated as the closing chapter of an affair that left a deep mark on the town of Suèvres, near where the body was discovered. For years the child lay in an unmarked grave, and residents describe the anonymity itself as a source of lasting unease. The hearing has also put the health and memory of the two elderly defendants at the centre of argument, with the court repeatedly testing whether they can follow proceedings.
An investigator recalls the discovery
Rémy M., who directed the investigation, told the court that of all the judicial inquiries he worked on, this is the one image that stayed with him — the photograph of the girl. He described the condition of the body as abominable and said the word "horrible" was not strong enough for what he saw at the autopsy, ladepeche.fr reports. He added that the child's body had been mutilated.
From the outset, he said, his working assumption was that family members were responsible, a view he based in part on the fact that no missing-person report had ever been filed. Early in the inquiry, investigators checked schools to establish whether a child was absent, and circulated an appeal for witnesses. For the composite image used in that appeal, the photograph had to be retouched because the original could not be shown to the public, he said.
He also spoke of the anonymous grave as a fixation for local people. One resident, identified as Rémy M. in the same report, said that when he learned the case had been solved, his relief came not from the arrest of suspects but from the fact that the grave could finally be given a name. (The report attributes both the investigator's account and the resident's remarks to a person of the same name.)
DNA, a brother's profile and the family tree
Much of the day turned on genetic evidence. Several DNA profiles were recovered from the blanket in which Inass was found, and one of them belonged to a brother of the victim. The match was confirmed in 2017, after that brother's DNA was entered into the FNAEG, France's national genetic fingerprint file, in connection with an unrelated matter. According to the report, the probability of kinship was put at more than 99.99 percent.
Investigators then reconstructed the family tree, which led them to the child's parents. The genetic profiles of Ahmed T. and Halima E. matched those expected of the parents of Inass and of her brother. An expert explained to the court how unknown DNA is sent to the FNAEG for comparison, and how a case can advance as analysis techniques improve.
Memory, silence and a rising temperature
The presiding judge questioned Ahmed Touloub about his recollection. He said at one point that he sometimes remembers and sometimes does not, and that he can forget from one day to the next what he has eaten. The advocate general asked him whether he was unable to answer questions or unwilling to, and noted that he fell silent whenever the subject was his daughter. Asked where he believed his daughter had gone, he said nothing. He also stated: "I did nothing. I never touched any of my children," and said he did not know the answers to specific questions about where Inass was on 11 August 1987 and whether he was aware she had died at the time of his arrest.
His lawyer, Me Frank Berton, objected that the judge was putting questions his client did not understand; the judge replied that he understood and was answering, and told the defence counsel to stop. The exchanges grew heated, with the judge insisting she would not refrain from asking questions.
Halima E. was called back to the stand after the expert's evidence so that the judge could confirm she had understood she was Inass's mother. She said she had understood this when she appeared before the investigating judge, and that before then she had believed her daughter was still alive. The advocate general described her hesitations as suspicious, asking whether she was mocking the court; she repeated that she had thought her daughter living until 2018. At one point she bent forward on her bench, elbows on her knees.
Ahmed Touloub told the judge, when asked about dozing during the hearing, that he was listening but tired. The judge said the court needed to be sure he was able to follow and asked him to say so if he had difficulties, then called a pause.
What to watch
The defence for Halima E., Me Radot, argued that the DNA presentation was technical and difficult for a non-specialist, and pressed the expert on the basis of his work; the expert said he had confined himself to analysing fractures and was not the forensic pathologist, a point the court confirmed. The trial continues, with the court still to weigh the genetic evidence and the disputed accounts of the two defendants.
