The shocking sequestration, rape and murder in Paris last week of Lola, a 12-year-old girl whose body was found in a trunk in front of her apartment building home, has been transformed by the far-right and conservative hardliners into a political row over immigration policy after it was revealed that the arrested suspect is a young Algerian woman who since August was the subject of an expulsion order. The controversy snowballed this week, forcing the government onto the defence despite an appeal by Lola’s parents that no political gain should be made of the atrocious crime. Lucie Delaporte and Christophe Gueugneau report.
It was shortly after 11pm on October 14th when a homeless man discovered the body of a young girl in a plastic trunk in the courtyard of an apartment building complex in north-east Paris. The 12-year-old victim, Lola, was the daughter of the caretakers of the building, who had earlier raised the alarm after she failed to return home that afternoon from her nearby school.
