An unimaginable tragedy unfolded in France, where a young girl pleaded for mercy before falling victim to a gruesome crime, a court has been told. The accused, Dahbia Benkired, a 27-year-old Algerian migrant, is on trial for the alleged rape and murder of 12-year-old Lola Daviet.

Benkired, who was reportedly living without stable accommodations and engaging in sex work at the time, is accused of luring the schoolgirl into her apartment on October 14, 2022. Once there, she allegedly sexually assaulted and murdered Lola, partially severing her head before concealing her body in a suitcase. The trial, held at the Paris Assize Court, is now in its fifth day.

Testimonies in court painted a harrowing picture of the events, with Benkired herself recounting that Lola had pleaded not to be harmed as she was led to the apartment. The accused detailed a troubling state of mind, triggered by a dispute with her former partner, Mustapha M. “I said to myself in my head I’m going to hurt someone,” Benkired confessed during her testimony.

On that tragic day, Benkired allegedly encountered Lola, after passing by a woman with a baby. She asked the young girl to assist her by opening a door, claiming she lacked a badge. Lola, in an act of kindness, agreed and even helped carry suitcases to the apartment, unaware of the malicious intent brewing in Benkired’s mind.

The chilling narrative shared in court underscores the brutality of the crime and the tragic loss of a young life, leaving those who hear it grappling with the senselessness of the act. As the trial progresses, the court seeks to unravel the full extent of the events leading up to this devastating incident.

‘I passed a woman with her baby. And then Lola. I asked her to open the door for me because I didn’t have a badge,’ Benkired told the court. Lola then allegedly helped the woman take her suitcases up to her apartment, as Benkired admitted she already knew in that moment she was planning to hurt her.

She pulled on Lola’s arm to get her into the elevator up to her apartment as she begged: ‘Madam, please don’t hurt me.’ Benkired said she told the child ‘don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,’ in response.

Once Lola was in the accused woman’s home, Benkired told the court she asked her to undress and take a shower, admitting that Lola appeared ‘scared’ during this time.

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

Dahbia Benkired (pictured) is accused of raping, torturing and murdering the 12-year-old girl in October 2022 

Benkired went on to explain how she sexually assaulted her and ‘slammed her head against the shower wall with my hand,’ insisting it was ‘really not hard’.

‘In the shower, for me, she turned into a ghost. She said nothing, she didn’t talk,’ Benkired recalled. ‘I was told that when I taped her up, she was still alive. For me, she was dead’.

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. 

But on Wednesday Benkired denied any penetration, claiming she was ‘telling the truth’. 

After claiming to force Lola to perform sex acts on her, the accused said she then ‘started to slap her’ because she was ‘afraid she would tell her family. All the hatred I had inside me, I took it out on her… Either way, I knew she was going to die’.

‘It’s not that I wanted to kill her, but that I wanted to hurt someone. But since I had raped her, I might as well kill her,’ Benkired said.

The schoolgirl suffered 38 stab and scissor wounds on her back and neck before dying from asphyxia, a doctor told the Assize Court in Paris on Monday.  

‘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’.

‘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.’ 

Lola is pictured in this CCTV footage still wearing a white coat and carrying what appears to be her schoolbag, as she follows a female suspect, believe to be Benkired, into an apartment building

CCTV footage shows the moment Dahbia Benkired allegedly opened the suitcase  she is said to have stuffed Lola into while sitting in a busy Paris bar

But on Wednesday, Benkired claimed she had brutally stabbed the girl after she ‘began to see her as a sheep’.

‘The skin was hard, like a sheep’s,’ explained the accused, who added that it was at this point that she wrote the numbers 0 and 1 on Lola’s feet. 

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.

Following the alleged murder, Benkired bound the child in duct tape and stuffed her body into a suitcase. 

On Wednesday, Nicolas Estano, 47, a clinical psychologist and expert witness, 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’.

Following the devastating confessions, Delphine implored the courts ‘to do whatever is necessary to ensure that this person is locked up for life,’ adding: ‘Do not give anything other than life imprisonment.’ 

Benkired then allegedly dragged her body around Paris in the plastic trunk, before dumping it on the street where it was found by a homeless man. 

But 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. 

Benkired settled in France in 2013, aged 14, but was subject to an expulsion order after overstaying a student visa

Delphine Daviet, mother of Lola, arrives at the Paris Assize Court for the trial of Benkired, accused of raping, torturing, and killing Lola Daviet. Pictured on October 17, 2025

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.

A police investigation revealed that a pair of scissors, an oyster knife and an IKEA knife were later found in Benkired’s flat with traces of blood. 

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.

Speaking in court on Wednesday, Lola’s heartbroken mother Delphine Daviet told how her husband, who had stopped drinking alcohol, began the habit again the day his daughter died.

He drank from morning to night,’ she said. He ‘died of grief,’ devastated by ‘his demons,’ she added. Lola’s father, Johan, passed away in February last year.

Before he died, Johan had hung a letter on the door of Benkired’s apartment, where she is said to have tortured and murdered the young girl. 

‘My darling, I still don’t understand why there was so much cruelty and barbarity towards you, you who were so kind.’ ‘I can’t wait to see you again,’ he wrote on the note. ‘Your dad, who loves you for life’.