An Indian employee of a catering firm in the Val-d’Oise department of France, located near Paris, has been indicted on charges of raping two vulnerable migrant colleagues but will continue to remain free on the street under judicial supervision. The decision stands after the prosecution’s appeal was dismissed for having been filed beyond the statutory deadline, a legal technicality.
According to details reported by French newspaper Le Parisien, the case began on April 17 when an undocumented worker of Sri Lankan origin employed by the same caterer in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône went to the police to accuse a 34-year-old Indian colleague of rape. She alleged that he had exploited her precarious migration status to rape her, counting on her silence out of fear that she would lose both her job and any chance of being legalized to stay in France.
A short time later, a second female employee of the company lodged a complaint of rape against the same man, describing circumstances that were essentially identical. Both women said the man raped them and then blackmailed them due to their illegal status to win their silence.
In early July, the man was arrested at his home in Pontoise. He had worked for the catering firm since 2015, is the father of three children and had no prior criminal record.
Placed in custody, he firmly denied the allegations during questioning and claimed he was the victim of a plot hatched by the women.
Despite his claims, he was subsequently indicted for the rape of vulnerable persons. However, the judge ordered his release under judicial supervision, requiring him to live in Normandy and forbidding any contact with the two migrant women he allegedly raped.
The public prosecutor’s office, persuaded that pre-trial detention was necessary, lodged an appeal against the release order. A procedural failure inside the services of the Versailles Court of Appeal, however, meant the file could not be examined within the legal fifteen-day period. Consequently the investigating chamber had no option but to record the missed deadline and uphold the judicial supervision already imposed on the indicted man.
The suspect’s employer, which operates sites in both Paris and the Val-d’Oise, quickly terminated the man’s employment.
