The Paris Assize Court sentenced Essia Boularès, accused of having caused the death of ten people and injured many in 2019 by setting fire to her building on rue Erlanger, in Paris (16th arrondissement), to twenty-five years of criminal imprisonment, Thursday, February 23. After more than six hours of deliberation, the president of the court, Franck Zientara, justified this sentence by “the extreme gravity of the facts”, evoking acts “not disconnected from reality”, with a start of fire ” voluntary”, “in the middle of the night”, motivated by “anger and resentment”.
This sentence is accompanied by a two-thirds security, as well as socio-judicial follow-up for fifteen years with a “care order”. The jurors found that Essia Boularès’ “discernment” was indeed “altered” at the time of the events, as concluded by two psychiatric expert reports, but they “discarded the benefit of the reduced sentence” allowed in this case by the Penal Code.
The sentence pronounced approaches the twenty-seven years that the Advocate General had claimed on Wednesday. He had admitted that the discernment of Essia Boularès, 44, was “altered” at the time of the events, but he had asked the jury not to apply the reduced sentence “in view of the extreme gravity of the tragedy”. provoked by his “voluntary, vengeful and disproportionate action”.
“Complex Personality”
Essia Boularès, a 44-year-old woman who suffers from addictions and significant psychiatric disorders, admitted to having set fire to her building on the night of February 4 to 5, 2019, after a dispute with a neighbor. The toxic fumes and the flames had invaded in a few minutes the eight floors of this old building at the back of the courtyard, difficult to access for the emergency services, trapping many inhabitants in their apartments.
The question of the mental health of the accused at the time of the facts had occupied the indictment as well as the pleadings of the defense lawyers. While Essia Boularès does have “a complex personality”, her decision to set the fire is neither “a delusional gesture” nor “an impulsive gesture”, but the result of “her uncontrolled anger exacerbated by her alcoholism”, had estimated the Advocate General, Rémi Crosson du Cormier.
Essia Boularès’ lawyers had invited the court to inject “a little nuance into this file”. While Essia Boularès had been chained since adolescence with withdrawal cures and internment under duress, lawyer Léa Hufnagel stressed that her “mystical crisis” three weeks before the facts had “no precedent” and was “not linked taking narcotics or alcohol”. “It’s a mixture of inconsistencies, of coherences”, summed up Sébastien Schapira, deploring the tendency of the president of the court to see “rationality” in all the acts of Essia Boularès.
In pre-trial detention for four years, Essia Boularès has made numerous stays in a specially equipped hospital unit (UHSA), a structure dedicated to detainees requiring psychiatric care. She spoke clearly during the proceedings, often struggling not to close her eyelids in the cubicle due to the “heavy treatment” she was given. “I just want to say sorry for everything,” she said Thursday.
