An Algerian woman who stands accused of torturing, raping, and killing a 12-year-old girl is said to have received ‘an almost sexual pleasure’ while carrying out the violent acts.
Dahbia Benkired, 27, an Algerian migrant living in France, allegedly lured schoolgirl Lola Daviet into her apartment on October 14, 2022. She is currently on day four of her six-day trial at the Paris Assize Court.
Benkired, who had been homeless and reportedly earning money as a prostitute at the time, is accused of partially severing Lola’s head and suffocating her as revenge for the girl’s mother refusing to give her a key to an apartment block.
But in court on Wednesday, Nicolas Estano, 47, a clinical psychologist and expert witness, claimed it was text messages between Benkired and her ex-partner Mustapha M, that led her to allegedly committing the gruesome crimes.
‘When you lose the object of the love you have invested in, there is a desire to take revenge… Lola Daviet is a victim by proxy of the anger she had against Mustapha M.’, the expert said, adding: ‘There is a rage expressed on someone who is not there, so we are going to express this rage on someone who is there.’
Lola is said to have been led into the apartment by Benkired, before being allegedly forced to perform a sex act on the woman ‘for her pleasure’. The young girl was later found to have suffered injuries which were consistent with ‘gripping of the neck, either to grasp it or because pressure was exerted on it’.
Adhesive tape was blocking the nose and mouth of the girl, who was slashed with scissors and a box cutter before being bound up in duct tape and stuffed into a suitcase.
Today, Estano told the court that even though ‘sexual sadism is something quite rare,’ he believes Benkired’s actions expose ‘an almost sexual pleasure in the abuse inflicted on someone’.
Dahbia Benkired (pictured) is accused of raping, torturing and murdering 12-year-old Lola Daviet in October 2022
The horrifying torture Lola Daviet, 12, is said to have endured at the hands of an Algerian migrant who allegedly raped and murdered her has been revealed at court
Lola is pictured in this CCTV footage still wearing a white coat and carrying what appears to be her schoolbag as she is led into an apartment building by a female suspect
During Monday’s hearing, several family members left the court as images of Lola’s injuries were shown while other shocking details came to light, including that she had ‘visible traumatic injuries’ on her genitals.
The 12-year-old girl was ‘vaginally and anally penetrated’ while she was still alive, according to the medical examiner’s examinations.
‘There was hemorrhagic trauma to various parts of the body,’ particularly to the child’s private parts, the doctor said.
Lola also had a ‘large wound’ on her face, a severed neck and a slashed back, likely caused by knives, while her ‘head was partially severed’.
On Wednesday, the Estano claimed that following the alleged brutal assault and murder, Benkired told him she had drank some of Lola’s blood, though the investigation never confirmed this.
He also told how the alleged killer, who is facing life imprisonment if found guilty, had made ‘strange remarks related to witchcraft’ linked to ‘family beliefs’, after Lola’s body was found with the numbers 1 and 0 on the soles of her feet in nail polish.
According to respected French newspaper Le Monde, Benkired allegedly told investigators that she saw a ‘ghost’ in Lola and acted out of ‘fear’ of this ‘devil incarnate.’ The probe showed she had conducted searches online into witchcraft days before the murder.
The schoolgirl suffered 38 wounds on her back and neck before dying from asphyxia, a doctor told the Assize Court in Paris on Monday.
‘There is physical, psychological and moral suffering’, the doctor added , as images of Lola’s injuries were shown to the court on day two of Benkired’s trial.
‘Asphyxia is very anxiety-provoking, it goes beyond physical pain. There were probably one or more impacts to the head, which creates physical pain.’
After allegedly killing her, Benkired dragged her body around Paris in the plastic trunk, before dumping it on the street where it was found by a homeless man.
CCTV, seen earlier by the court, showed the moment Benkired allegedly opened a suitcase containing the girl’s body while at a bar on Rue Manin just hours after the killing.
She arrived at the restaurant with two standard-sized suitcases and one much larger bag. Footage shows her chatting to a man while the large trunk – which prosecutors allege contained Lola’s body – lay on the tiled floor beside her.
Shocking CCTV footage shows the moment Dahbia Benkired allegedly opened the suitcase she is believed to have stuffed Lola into while sitting in a busy Paris bar
Benkired settled in France in 2013, aged 14, but was subject to an expulsion order after overstaying a student visa
At one point, Benkired appeared to point to the suitcase, opening it slightly as if to show its contents.
The man briefly touched the lid and looked inside before standing up. It is not clear if he realised what the case was carrying.
Benkired settled in France in 2013, aged 14, but was subject to an expulsion order after overstaying a student visa in August 2022, just two months before Lola was murdered.
Lola was seen entering the apartment building in October 2022 with the Algerian woman at around 3pm before being taken into an apartment, and it is alleged she was forced to undress and wash herself, before being raped.
Benkired left the building at 5pm with the young girl’s body in the trunk, which was found at 11pm, the court was told.
Horrific images of Lola’s naked body squashed into the suitcase were shown to the court on Friday, prompting her family to walk out.
The shocking photographs showed her arms bound together and her face completely covered in tape.
Building residents saw Benkired in the lobby of the apartment block in the 19th district, carrying suitcases and a heavy trunk covered in a blanket, the investigation showed.
An hour and a half earlier, security footage showed Benkired approaching the girl as she returned from school, then leading her into the flat her sister occupied in the building.
She placed the body in a trunk and exited the building, pausing outside a cafe, where she told a client who suspected something strange in her luggage that she was ‘selling a kidney’, investigators said.
She is then said to have convinced a friend to drive her and the bags to his home, before taking a taxi with the trunk back to the building where her sister lived.
She fled when she saw police deployed in the area, but was arrested the next day.
A police investigation revealed that a pair of scissors, an oyster knife and an IKEA knife were found in Benkired’s flat with traces of blood.
Speaking in court on Friday, Lola’s mother Delphine Daviet, who was wearing a white T-shirt with a picture of her daughter, demanded ‘justice’.
15208347, mother of Lola, accompanied by relatives, arrives at the Paris Assize Court for the trial of Dahbia Benkired, accused of raping, torturing, and killing Lola Daviet, a 12-year-old girl, in 2022, on October 17, 2025
The girl’s family sat in court wearing matching t-shirts with the words: ‘You were the sun of our life, you will be the star of our nights.’
The Algerian alleged killer had a tough upbringing with aunts before she settled in France in 2013, the investigation showed.
She told the court that she had been abused by family and neighbours as she grew up, claiming her aunts ‘forced her to watch pornographic films… and groped her in the forest.’
It was reported at the time of the killing that she was was the subject of an expulsion order, prompting stinging criticism from the right and one of the most bitter political debates in recent memory.
Asked why she didn’t want to return to Algeria, Benkired said: ‘I feel free in France. In Algeria, we have no life.
‘There was no reason. I studied here, I grew up here, I have my whole family here. What am I going to do there?’
She claimed to have suffered something of a mental breakdown following her parents’ deaths in 2019 and 2020.
She said she would smoke up to ’20 [cannabis] joints a day’ to deal with this ‘tipping point’.
She had overstayed a student visa and had failed to comply with a notice issued in August to leave France within 30 days.
Benkired, whose trial is to last until Friday, faces a maximum sentence of life in jail.
