A 27-year-old Congolese migrant was arrested on Friday; he had evaded authorities since July following a double rape of two elderly patients at a hospital in Hauts-de-Seine, a suburb of Paris.
The suspect was arrested at the Gare de Lyon in Paris by the police of the Ile-de-France force. The arrest occurred at approximately 7:30 a.m. as officials approached the man while he was waiting for a metro. A search of his given name revealed he was a Congolese national under a search warrant issued by a magistrate of the Nanterre court in Hauts-de-Seine.
The attack on July 27 saw two pensioners, aged 68 and 77, raped just 30 minutes apart as they sat hospitalized in the Max-Fourestier hospital in Nanterre, Hauts-de-Seine. Both patients are understood to have been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and were unable to put up significant resistance.
The suspect had been filmed on CCTV shortly before and after the attacks, and hospital staff confirmed he was neither an employee nor a patient at the hospital at the time.
Security measures are understood to have been increased at the hospital following the attacks.
A DNA sample taken by the accused upon his arrest has also linked him to the later rape of a schoolgirl.
“A reconciliation with his DNA also made it possible to impute to him the rape of a 12-year-old child committed a few days later in Paris,” a source close to the case revealed, as reported by Le Parisien newspaper.
A hearing took place at a local courthouse on Sunday which saw the accused indicted and imprisoned pending trial.
