Couple on trial for stabbing child to death

The trial of a couple accused of torturing and killing a ten-year-old has begun in l’Ain in the east of France. The victim Valentin Crémault was found in 2008 with 44 knife wounds in his body.

Published: 5 December 2011 11:41 CET

Stéphane Moiteret, 42 years old, is accused of murder and acts of torture while his partner Noëlla Hégo, 52 years old, stands accused of complicity.

In the courtroom on Monday, Moiteret appeared scared and was barely audible when he told the judges his name, French weekly Le Point reports.

Psychological experts disagree on whether Moiteret and Hégo are sane and should face trial.

The couple say they are Australian pilgrims on a quest to save the world. Hégo insists on being called “Her Majesty” or “Her Excellency”.

The victim Valentin Crémault was found stabbed to death in the town of Lagnieu. He had gone on a bike ride.

The couple Moiteret and Hégo are suspected of killing Valentin after traces of blood containing the child’s DNA were found at a nearby parish where they were staying.

Moiteret insists a look-alike commited the crime.

The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.