Patrick Salameh

In October 2015, his second trial was held before the assizes in Bouches-du-Rhône. He was again found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Fatima Saiah, whose body was also never found. He received another life imprisonment term, as well as 22 years of preventive detention.

In 2014, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with 22 years preventive detention for kidnapping, sequestration and rape leading to death.

Salameh's first trial took place in March 2014, before the assizes in Aix-en-Provence. He was found guilty of kidnapping, forcible confinement and rape causing death in the cases of Sytnyk, Bahulea and Chebout, as well as kidnapping and raping El Kandadi, the main witness in the trial. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

In 2008, women began disappearing from the Marseille area without any trace left. Despite the investigating authorities' efforts, no bodies were found until statements from a key witness helped relaunch the investigation, which eventually lead them to Salameh. While examining his past, investigators were overwhelmed by his checkered criminal record.

In 2008, in the span of a little more than a month, three prostitutes mysteriously disappeared in Marseille. They were the following:

On the evening of November 15, 2008, Patrick Salameh was arrested. Immediately after he was jailed, the disappearances in Marseille seized. Salameh's criminal past played no favors on his part. He had recently been released from prison, after serving a 16-year sentence for theft, carrying of illegal weapons, kidnapping and torture.

During his years in prison, Salameh wrote and painted, revealing real talent in the latter. His painted canvases were exhibited in several galleries, and often portrayed tortured characters. Upon his release in 2005, he resumed living a normal life, forming a family, exhibiting his works while also working as a site manager.

On May 10, 1996, he was put on trial before the assizes in Draguignan, accompanied by his three accomplices. At the end of the trial, the jurors deliberated for four hours about the sentences. The prosecutor requested a 20-year sentence for Patrick Salameh, and he was later convicted for armed robbery, sequestration, torture and indecent assault. He was later released after 16 years behind bars.

The entirety of Salameh's life is punctuated with delinquent acts. Between September 1988 and February 1989, along with a group of friends, he carried out numerous burglaries in Var. They broke into homes, attacked the residents and stole their valuables, earning the nickname "The Wild Horde" by the press and the media. Finally, the gang was arrested and imprisoned at the Baumettes Prison. Salameh was accused by his accomplices of being the only violent member, but Patrick denied those claims.

Patrick Salameh (born April 21, 1957), known as The Marseille Ripper, is a French criminal and serial killer.

Patrick Salameh was born on April 21, 1957 in Fréjus, Var Department. He was born into a large family of Lebanese-Syrian origin, with nine other siblings. When he was a child, the whole family to Marseille. As an adult, Patrick married and later fathered two children. In the 1980s, he ran a restaurant located in the heart of Marseille's sensitive areas.