Évry-Courcouronnes (France) (AFP) – He argued to the end of an accidental shooting, without convincing the Essonne Assize Court: Yacine A. was sentenced Thursday to 28 years of criminal imprisonment for killing his partner in 2023 in Grigny and putting her body in his freezer.
Published on: 05/11/2026 - 22:38
In detention for three years, the 50-year-old butcher, convicted of murder aggravated by marital bond, was sentenced with two-thirds security and should therefore spend at least 15 additional years behind bars.
His sixty-year-old accomplice, Rachid A., was found guilty of helping him conceal the crime and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment with 21 months suspended, with the sentence modified so that he wore an electronic bracelet.
The court ruled that his psychological problems had impaired his discernment, forcing him to undergo treatment.
“I think that the civil parties are very satisfied with the result (...) Justice has been done and that is what they were demanding,” reacted to AFP the lawyer for the victim’s family, Me Solène Debarre.
Asked by AFP, the defense lawyers did not wish to comment.
Relatives of the victim came in large numbers to attend the verdict, wearing white t-shirts flocked with his portrait and demanding justice in his name.
During the four days of the trial, they regretted the "lies" of the accused and the inconsistency of their changing versions.
“Those who are sentenced to life imprisonment, it’s us in fact, my mother I will never see again,” lamented the victim’s eldest son on the stand.
The attorney general had requested 30 years of imprisonment against Yacine A. for having fired two point-blank bullets at his partner, having wrapped her body in blankets and having placed it in the freezer at his home, with great “cold blood”, after an argument during which he said he had threatened to commit suicide.
“Well-known” mechanism
He always denied being the author of the second attack, accusing Rachid A. after having, during the procedure, named one of his friends, who had been detained before benefiting from a dismissal of the case.
“I assume that the first shot was my fault, but the second, sincerely, I can’t say anything about that,” he repeated, perpetually keeping his gaze on the ground and assuring that he had “loved” his partner.
The prosecution, in its indictment, noted a "well-known" mechanism in domestic violence, against a background of excessive consumption of alcohol and narcotics, verbal aggression and then violence, against a "free woman".
“It is not loving to blackmail suicide and shoot your partner,” then place your body in a freezer “like common merchandise,” declared the attorney general.
By placing the remains in the living room freezer, the two men "took away a part of humanity" from the victim, according to her.
The son of Yacine A. must be tried by the children's court for modifying the inventory of a crime to obstruct the manifestation of the truth.
In 2025, 111 women were killed by their spouse or ex-spouse in France, a figure up 4% over one year, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
© 2026 AFP
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