A woman who took part in the rape and torture of a man in the Plateau Mont-Royal borough — and was arrested when the car she was driving crashed into a tree during a police chase — was sentenced Thursday to a 51-month prison term.
During a hearing at the Montreal courthouse before Quebec Court Judge Lucie Joncas, Silya Medkour, 22, of LaSalle, pleaded guilty to forcible confinement, fraud, obstructing peace officers in the line of duty and aggravated assault.
The judge agreed with a joint suggestion that Medkour be sentenced to the 51-month prison term. With time served factored into the sentence, Medkour has three months left to serve as of Thursday. The prison term will be followed by three years of probation.
Medkour admitted that, on Aug. 8, 2023, she and a man — who is charged in the same case and awaiting a possible trial — subjected the victim to hours of abuse inside an apartment on Cherrier St. that the victim rented through Airbnb.
Prosecutor Jérôme Laflamme told the judge that either five or six people were inside the apartment when an argument started over what to order through DoorDash, the food delivery app, at around 10:20 p.m.
Medkour slapped the victim and the man charged in the case threatened him with a knife.
“Things degenerated quickly,” Laflamme said while alleging that most of what followed can be attributed to the man who was charged with Medkour. “Ms. Medkour intervened a few times between the complainant and the co-accused, to slow things down, considering the violence.”
Laflamme said the victim was nude while he was constrained, held against his will for hours and was subjected to “several acts of violence.” That included being forced to sit on the top of a large bottle of vodka, to a point where it entered the man’s anus and rectum, Laflamme said.
“He was stuck on the head with bottles and one of them broke,” the prosecutor said, adding the victim was also burned with things like knives and scissors that were heated up.
“His head was struck against a wall and this broke the wall,” the prosecutor said, adding the victim was also forced to carry out several degrading acts, including licking his own blood.
Medkour’s co-accused is also alleged to have used the victim’s credit card to order liquor bottles and to rent another Airbnb apartment.
“When (the victim) was interviewed by the police, he told the police he was assaulted for 24 hours and described being hit, cut and humiliated,” Laflamme said.
The following day, someone recorded images of the aftermath of a police chase on Cherrier St., after a vehicle Medkour was driving crashed into a tree. The video was posted on TikTok and went viral.
Medkour’s co-accused was in the front passenger seat and the victim was in the back seat. The victim suffered an injury to his head and Medkour was injured as well.
When police searched the apartment, they found blood on the walls, the hole in a wall, the large bottle of vodka and other items that were used to torture the man.
Laflamme said the victim suffered several injuries all over his body, including a 10-centimetre cut, and he required plastic surgery.
Following her arrest, Medkour told the police that, over the course of the previous year, she had been drinking 40 ounces of alcohol per day.
“At that point in her life, she was living a life that was profoundly unstable and disorganized. She was not pursuing her studies and did not have a stable job,” defence lawyer Stéphane Cohen told the court.
Cohen said Medkour’s mother died in Algeria, at some point in 2023, after undergoing surgeries and treatments for a year.
“(Medkour) could not be there when (her mother) died. This affected her profoundly,” Cohen said, adding the situation caused to Medkour to drink heavily. “She has expressed profound remorse for her actions and participation in the events. She regrets being part of the context of violence and lacking judgment and having let her life become destructive.”