This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/world/europe/sexual-assault-france-farid-el-hairy.html
The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 3 | Version 4 |
|---|---|
| Rape, Race and a Decades-Old Lie That Still Wounds | Rape, Race and a Decades-Old Lie That Still Wounds |
| (1 day later) | |
| The phone echoed in Farid El Haïry’s home in northern France. It was February 1999. | The phone echoed in Farid El Haïry’s home in northern France. It was February 1999. |
| A rural police officer was on the line, asking if he could come down to the gendarmerie for a chat. | A rural police officer was on the line, asking if he could come down to the gendarmerie for a chat. |
| “I asked them why and was it urgent,” he says. It’s nothing serious, he remembers being told. Come when you can. It won’t take long. | “I asked them why and was it urgent,” he says. It’s nothing serious, he remembers being told. Come when you can. It won’t take long. |
| Then a lanky 17-year-old about to start an apprenticeship in a bakery, Mr. El Haïry set out for the brick station a couple of days later. He grabbed some pains au chocolat and a Coke on the way for breakfast. | Then a lanky 17-year-old about to start an apprenticeship in a bakery, Mr. El Haïry set out for the brick station a couple of days later. He grabbed some pains au chocolat and a Coke on the way for breakfast. |
| He would not return home for years. | He would not return home for years. |
| He was charged with the sexual assault and rape of a 15-year-old girl from a neighboring high school, whom he knew only by sight and had never spoken to. The police had no witnesses, no corroborating evidence, just her word against his. | He was charged with the sexual assault and rape of a 15-year-old girl from a neighboring high school, whom he knew only by sight and had never spoken to. The police had no witnesses, no corroborating evidence, just her word against his. |
| After a night at the gendarmerie, he was sent to a nearby prison that was notorious for overcrowding, drug use and suicide. He spent the next 11 months and 23 days in pretrial custody before being released with one painful condition — stay away from his home city of Hazebrouck, where his accuser, but also his friends and family, lived. | |
| At a trial in 2003, a jury found him guilty and sentenced him to five years in prison, but so much of it was suspended that he would not return to jail. |