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In 2022, a public inquiry was ordered into the deaths of Dahia Khellaf and her young sons Adam and Aksil in Pointe-aux-Trembles, as well as the suicide of spouse and father Nabil Yssaad.
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Public hearings on a triple murder-suicide that occurred in 2019, in which a mother and her two children were killed in Pointe-aux-Trembles, will begin Monday in Joliette.
In July 2022, a coroner ordered a public inquiry into the deaths of Dahia Khellaf, 42, and her sons Adam and Aksil, age two and four, as well as the suicide of spouse and father Nabil Yssaad, 46.
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Coroner Pascale Descary made the announcement following the filing of four damning reports on the deaths from coroner Alain Manseau.
On Dec. 10, 2019, Yssaad had gone to a hospital in Lanaudière, and jumped from the sixth floor. While attempting to alert his family, police discovered the bodies of the mother and children lying side by side in the parents’ bed. According to Manseau, evidence indicated all three had been strangled in their sleep with an electric cable.
The couple had united through an arranged marriage while Khellaf was visiting her home country of Algeria in 2012. She then returned alone and sponsored the entry of her husband, who arrived in Quebec in 2014. The relationship deteriorated upon Yssaad’s arrival.
Manseau’s reports itemize a series of contemptuous remarks made toward Khellaf, threats, and violent gestures that gave rise to repeated interventions by police and led to Khellaf’s decision to file for divorce in 2018 — a plan she abandoned when she discovered she was not eligible for legal aid.
In August 2018, she went to a police station to file a report against her husband for death threats.
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The reports say there was then a round of arrests, indictments, releases, non-compliance with conditions and constant lies to authorities from Yssaad, who openly mocked conditions imposed on him, even in front of judges.
A year and a half of proceedings involving domestic violence charges followed, during which seven prosecutors took part — the last of whom, at the beginning of December 2019, had practically no experience dealing with such matters.
Manseau criticized the police and judicial authorities, as well as the various parties that did not adequately monitor the situation despite the obvious threat Yssaad posed.
The coroner’s office announced in 2022 that new facts had been brought forward, causing the chief coroner to call for a public hearing to establish the circumstances surrounding all four deaths.
Coroner Andrée Kronström was appointed to head the public inquiry. She will be assisted by prosecutor Roxanne Lefebvre.
The public hearings will take place from Oct. 23 to 27 and Nov. 6 to 10.
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