Souad Massi’s life changed one evening in March 2017. While on a business trip, the singer received a terrifying phone call from her husband around 10 p.m. “I’m going to make you pay a lot of money, it’s all going to end,” Abdellatif Z. had told her, from whom she wanted to divorce. Quickly, she had warned the firefighters who had intervened at her home in Bouc-Bel-Air, between Marseille and Aix-en-Provence.
Once there, the firefighters accompanied by the gendarmes had discovered the whole family inanimate. The couple’s children, aged 6 and 11, who had been drugged, were in the master bedroom. The father of the family was lying on the living room floor. Near him, a half-burnt cigarette was soaked in a flammable product, which was also present in large quantities on the walls and floor of the house. A large gas cylinder had been opened behind an armchair.
The trial of the ex-husband of Souad Massi has opened
If the rapid intervention of the emergency services had saved the whole family, the investigation then revealed that if there had been the presence of a source of heat stronger than the cigarette, the family home could have exploded. Six years after the events, the trial of Abdellatif Z. opened at the Assize Court of Aix-en-Provence, as reported by Le Parisien.
Souad Massi’s ex-husband, who is now a VTC driver, admitted his responsibility. “I recognize the facts of which I am accused” he indicated while he appeared free under judicial control. After his speech, his two daughters also testified and confided that they had “suffered a lot” from his gesture. The trial is due to end on Friday March 3 and the main suspect faces life imprisonment.
Souad Massi: the singer’s ex-husband tried for an appalling act on their daughters © Guillaume Gaffiot
