“Pure imagination”, denounces the accused on the first day of his trial

Salim Berrada is on trial for 17 rapes and sexual assaults. In court, he assured that the relationships were all consensual.

In the glass box, the slender accused, with thick hair and small glasses, almost looks like a student. However, Salim Berrada, nicknamed the “Tinder rapist” is 38 years old, and appears for 17 rapes and sexual assaults between the end of 2014 and the end of 2016. Monday March 18, on the first day of a trial which is expected to last two weeks, the court looked at the personality and life trajectory of the accused.

This engineer converted into a photographer, contacted young women via dating apps and model sites. Many were in fact candidates for modeling. The accusation depicts a mode of action “industrial”.

Artist’s ambitions

Facing the court, Salim Berrada recounts his arrival by boat and bus from Morocco to Bordeaux, at the age of 20, for his computer engineering studies, which he successfully completed. It was only then that Salim Berrada confided that he had his first encounters with girls, and had his first sexual relations. “Before, I was in a completely different universe, raised in Casablanca by my mother, a modest seamstress who provided for the needs of her four children alone and demanded exemplary behavior in everything”he says.

Hired in an IT security company in La Défense, he ends up resigning because he is bored. He dreams of a more creative job and buys a camera. “Financially, it was risky, but I really wanted art”remembers the accused, who progressed quickly, gained a little notoriety and organized photo shoots in his Parisian apartment, listing the names of the models in an Excel table to help him find his way.

He pleads consent

During the reading of the report on the facts, Salim Berrada shook his head several times in disapproval. He contests the serial rapes and sexual assaults for which he must answer. He expresses himself with great confidence in the words he chooses. For him, with all of them, these were relationships agreed to during photo shoots. To the investigators, he explained that it was they, disappointed, who joined forces, lied and wanted revenge for not having been called back.

All report feeling dizzy at the time of the rapes or sexual assaults, leading to suspicions of chemical submission. “Pure imagination”according to the accused. “You would then say that you are a great sentimentalist ?”asks the president. “I did not define myself as such, but I was, yes”blurted out the accused.

“I never had a sex addiction, only an addiction to arousing desire.”

Salim Berrada

on the first day of his trial

“Isn’t this contradictory with the description given of you in the file? ? Of a sex addict who had 600 partners in two years at the material time ?”continues the magistrate. “No, in reality, I may be selfish, but also capable of love, a dreamer”replies the person concerned.

Exclamations and nervous laughter are heard on the benches of the civil parties, where around fifteen victims listen, annoyed. “I have the impression that it does not generate support”soberly comments the president, who finally asks him how he sees his future. “It’s difficult to project myself”finishes the one who, with a broken voice, explains that he had wanted to commit suicide. “I was threatened with death. My name was tarnished, ruined. But if I could choose, I would take up photography again, and cinema too. I would write books, I will create, but I will no longer take photos of fashion. This world, now, disgusts me.”