France: Algerian Sentenced to 17 Years for Raping a Minor in a Hospital and Raping Another Woman on the Street

A 39-year-old Algerian, with a deportation order (OQTF), has been sentenced to 17 years in prison after being found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl in her hospital bed at the Toulouse University Hospital in November 2021.

The convicted man, Ismael C., received his sentence in the Haute-Garonne criminal court and had already been convicted of similar acts in Switzerland. On top of the other two rapes, he was also found guilty of brutally raping another young woman in the middle of the street in the Capitole district; he also tried to steal this victim’s phone.

Regarding the rape of the young woman in the hospital, on Nov. 30, 2021, 16-year-old Lisa was awakened by noise while she was in her hospital room at the Toulouse University Hospital. She noticed it was 1:30 a.m. and there was a man sitting in her bed. He had removed her pajama bottoms and t-shirt. In a panic, she recognized the man as someone she had a cigarette with earlier that day.

She tried to hit the alarm on her bed to alert hospital staff but nobody came. He then told her he “loved her,” and then had violent intercourse with the girl. She immediately reported the rape afterwards, with the Algerian “fleeing and disconcerted.” He was stopped while trying to leave the building by security guards. Once he was arrested, Ismail C. claimed that she had consented and wanted to have sex.

However, that was not the only rape case he would be connected to. Once in custody, police linked him to another rape that occurred three weeks earlier, on Nov. 9, 2021, involving a woman named Myriam, who said she was violently raped by a stranger near Place du Capitole.

During the trial, the defendant shocked the courtroom by claiming the raped women were all consenting and “miming” out the rape by physically humping the air.

“They were consenting, it’s a miscarriage of justice, I’m the victim, I’m weak and incapable of forcing,” he said. The newspaper La Depeche described “unease in the courtroom” when the defendant pantomimed a rape in front of the court.

The public prosecutor requested 18 years in prison because experts noted the man presented a “significant sexual danger.”

The lawyer for the young woman attacked in the street said “the sentence is harsh, but it is commensurate with the trauma inflicted on the victims.” The counsel for the girl raped in the hospital noted “the accused’s disrespectful attitude towards victims who were physically injured.”

Ismael C. is also permanently banned from French territory.