A 29-year-old woman was raped several times - sometimes with a 29 inch long broomstick - and tortured by an 18-year-old man in a sickening case that has sent shockwaves through France.
The victim, who remains anonymous, was grabbed by the neck and hit repeatedly in the face and across her body by attacker Oumar N. after he broke into her home in the northwestern city of Cherbourg on August 4, prosecutors say.
The horrified woman was thrown across the room and raped 'several times' by the attacker, who also used the broomstick to sexually assault and torture her, reports Le Figaro.
The victim was left naked and in a bloodied mess on the floor of her apartment before she managed to reach her telephone and call medics who rushed her to Pasteur Hospital in Cherbourg.
The 'barbaric' attack has left the 29-year-old victim with horrific injuries, including a perforated colon, small intestine and diaphragm as well as fractured ribs.
She is still in a coma and is fighting for her life ten days after medics operated on her extensive injuries for several hours.
'Investigators are shocked, they have never seen so much barbarity,' a source familiar with the matter told Le Figaro.
Within days of the 'atrocity', Oumar N. was arrested after cops matched fingerprints left on a door handle inside the victim's home to the 18-year-old and geolocated his phone to the house at the time of the attack.
While being questioned by police, sources say Oumar N showed 'no emotion and no empathy' for the victim and had initially denied the attack before being shown the fingerprint evidence.
'He has a dangerous profile, he showed absolutely no emotion and no empathy for the victim,' a source familiar with the case told Le Figaro. 'He showed coldness throughout police custody.'
Prosecutors said the sinister attacker, who was known to police for allegedly sexually assaulting his four-year-old sister, was indicted on Saturday for 'rape accompanied by torture or acts of barbarism'.
The victim told police officers that she had seen Oumar N. in Cherbourg before the attack but did not know him, Pierre-Yves Marot, the public prosecutor of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, revealed.
The attack she endured and the resulting injuries, which includes the perforation of parts of her abdomen and small intestine, has shocked medics and locals in Cherbourg.
Doctors and nurses who treated the victim when she first came to the hospital were said to be so horrified by her injuries that some broke down and burst into tears. Psychological support is now being provided to the medics, reports France Bleu.
French politicians spoke of their outrage at the attack, with some on the far-right blaming an apparent rise of 'barbarism' in France for the rape.
Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, tweeted: 'Courage to the 29-year-old victim, umpteenth life shattered by the barbarism that is gaining France.'
French far-right politician Eric Zemmour, who ran to be president earlier this year, wrote on Twitter: 'I dream of a France where a young woman is not in danger of ending up in a coma after being robbed, raped and horribly tortured by Oumar the repeat offender in her own home.'
