Macabre discovery this Tuesday in Rennes where the lifeless body of a 45-year-old woman was found in an apartment on rue du Bourbonnais in the Villejean district. In the morning, a 48-year-old man from Congo had presented himself to the police station of the district, indicating “that he had strangled his wife”, indicates the parquet floor of Rennes in a press release. An investigation, entrusted to the departmental security, was opened for murder by spouse.
Alcoholic, the suspect was placed in police custody while waiting to be heard on the circumstances of the facts. An autopsy of the victim was ordered to determine the causes of death of the woman, also of Congolese nationality. Present in the apartment, the couple’s two daughters, aged 8 and 9, were hospitalized.
Complaints closed without follow-up
The prosecution specifies that the couple had married in 2012 in the Democratic Republic of Congo before coming to settle in France. In 2013, the victim had filed a complaint for domestic violence but the file had been closed without further action. Two years later, a children’s judge was seized following violence committed by the respondent on one of the victim’s children.
In 2016, the latter had again denounced new acts of violence and a criminal composition had been ordered, “including an awareness course on domestic violence”, indicates the prosecution. The same year, the suspect had also filed a complaint against his wife for violence, but the procedure had been dismissed.
Sentenced for domestic violence in 2019
Three years later, he was sentenced to a year and a half in prison, including eight months accompanied by a suspended sentence with probation for two years, for acts of violence by spouse and with a weapon. He was also prohibited from contacting the victim. Following this conviction, he was imprisoned in the Rennes-Vezin penitentiary center between December 16, 2019 and July 8, 2020.
He had since been followed by the probation and integration service as part of a probationary period which was to end on July 8. “The first investigations do not report any complaints from the victim or handrails of police intervention since the 2019 conviction,” adds the Rennes prosecutor’s office.
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