French court condemns man who burned wife alive to life in prison

Kamel (C) et Djohar Daoud (R), the parents of the victim Chahinez Daoud, react as they seat before the trial of Mounir Boutaa who appears for murder at the Gironde Assizes Court in Bordeaux on March 24, 2025. The trial of Mounir Boutaa, who burnt alive his wife Chahinez Daoud in the street in 2021 in Merignac takes place at the Gironde Assizes Court until March 28, 2025. (Photo by Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP)

BORDEAUX, France — A French court on Friday condemned a man who burned his 31-year-old wife alive to life imprisonment, in a case that shocked the country and sparked criticism of police for failing to protect her.

Mounir Boutaa, 48, will have to serve a minimum of 22 years behind bars, after which a sentencing tribunal will decide if he can be released.

“It’s an extremely severe sentence in that he has almost no chance of one day leaving detention,” said Anais Divot, one of his lawyers.

A lawyer for the victim’s family, Julien Plouton, said that “the sentence takes into account the seriousness of the facts and the personality of the accused.”

In 2021, the French-Algerian man stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, using a van that he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France to watch her.

On May 4 of that year, Boutaa shot the mother of three in both legs with a rifle, poured petrol on her, and set her on fire.

In the eyes of the accused, “Chahinez was not to exist anymore, neither for him nor for others; she was not to have a face or a body, but to be nothing but dust,” said prosecutor Cecile Kauffman.

It was a “murderous determination to exterminate,” which has “profoundly affected our entire society,” Kauffman told the court in Bordeaux.

The accused, described as “paranoid” with “narcissistic traits” by several experts, “undoubtedly has impaired judgment”, she said.

However, she argued against any leniency and demanded he be sentenced to life in prison, with a mandatory minimum sentence of 22 years, insisting he was dangerous.

‘It wasn’t me’

The prosecution described Boutaa as “pathologically jealous” and a manipulator, while his defence team sought to portray him as a disturbed man in need of help.

He had suffered from a “psychological problem,” said his lawyer, Divot.

Boutaa, a builder, had been released from prison at the end of 2020 after serving time for choking his wife and threatening her with a knife.

He had already been accused of domestic violence against a previous partner.

Boutaa’s former wife told the court that he also wanted to exercise control over her, adding that she had been subjected to “slaps, kicks, and insults.”

He denied any intention to kill Daoud, saying he had wanted instead to “punish her”, burn her “a little” and make sure she would “keep marks.”

“It wasn’t me, it was my body, not my mind,” he said.

“Of course, I regret it,” he said on Thursday. “I loved her.”

Before the court retired to deliberate on Friday, he asked for forgiveness “from the whole world”.

Daoud lived in fear, according to her friends and family.

“He wanted to control everything: the way she dressed, the way she cooked,” said one of Daoud’s sisters.

A neighbour, hearing the screams when Boutaa set Daoud on fire, tried to intervene but it was too late. When Daoud’s body was recovered, it was completely charred.

Boutaa filmed part of the horrific scene.

A month and a half before her death, Daoud filed a new complaint against Boutaa. Investigators later found the handling of her complaint by a policeman — himself found guilty of domestic violence — severely lacking.

The victim’s family has launched a case against the French state for “serious failures.”