Ali Kouch, the 38-year-old Moroccan who strangled his pregnant wife and six-year-old son in Sa Pobla in May 2021, faces a possible life sentence.
The lawyer for the private prosecution in the case, Isabel Fluxà, has made the life sentence request, reviewable after 31 years, for murder, unauthorised abortion and habitual abuse. She is also demanding that he pays Warda Ouchene's parents 200,000 euros compensation.
The events for which Ali Kouch will be tried in Palma (both public and private prosecution) occurred on the night of May 16, 2021. At their home on C. Santa Catalina Thomàs in Sa Pobla, the couple had an argument. He hit Warda Ouchene, 28, several times before strangling her to death. She was pregnant with his baby. He then strangled his son, locked the door to the house and drove to Palma, where he was arrested the next day.
At around 4.15pm on May 17, he sent a message to a brother of Warda Ouchene, informing him that she was dead and telling him where her body and that of his son were. Later that day, around 8pm, he called the Guardia Civil and confessed. Investigators established that after committing the murders he had gone to Son Banya in Palma in order to buy drugs.
Saliha, a friend of Warda Ouchene, later explained that Warda had been afraid of her husband; she told Saliha that he was going to kill her. Other friends were aware of the situation and had told her to leave him. But she didn't. "She always told me that what she loved most in this world was her son."