LI City Man Charged In Wife's '99 Murder
By Chau Lam
STAFF WRITER
NEW YORK NEWSDAY, WENESDAY, MARCH 21, 2001

The estranged Long Island City husband of a Hicksville woman whose battered body was found in her home more that two years ago was indicted yesterday in her murder.

Ali Bessaha, 64, who prosecutors said was in the midst of a bitterly contested divorce with his wife, Ourida Fatima Bessaha, 54, allegedly killed her so that he could keep all of the couple's $1.4 million in assets, which included cash, real estate and a taxi medallion.

"The motive was financial," Assistant District Attorney Robert Biancavilla said yesterday. "He stood to lose half of everything he owned."

A Nassau County grand jury charged Bessaha, of 43-20 40th St., Long Island City, with two counts of second-degree murder. Prosecutors said they believed that Bessaha used a tubular object to beat his wife about the head and face at least 20 times.

"It was brutal. The whole left side of her face was basically pulverized," Biancavilla said.

Bessaha, who will be arraigned on the murder charge within two weeks, is being held at the county jail in East Meadow awaiting trial on federal charges accusing him of defrauding his wife by transferring their joint assets to banks in Paris. The federal trial is scheduled for May.

His attorney, Todd Greenberg of Forest Hills, said yesterday that he was surprised to learn of the indictment against Bessaha. His client was at a club with several friends and he was heading home at the time his wife was killed, Greenberg said.

"I do feel very strongly that my client is not guilty. I don't think they have any direct evidence that he was involved," Greenberg said.

Prosecutors said that Bessaha killed his wife on Jan. 30, 1999 two days before their divorce judge was to approve the sale of four buildings worth a total of about $1 million. Because Bessaha owned half of that, Biancavilla said, the judge was going to distribute about $250,000 to Bessaha's wife.

The Bessaha's son, Alex, found his mother's body sprawled in the living room of her home on Brittle Lane, where neighbors said Ourida Fatima Bessaha lived alone, and where Alex kept a room. Their daughter Nora lived in Manhattan.

There were no witnesses to the killing, but police found a footprint at the crime scene that they said appeared to match a shoe belonging to Bessaha.

Although Bessaha had been the prime suspect from the beginning, Biancavilla said, it took two years to put the case together because the investigation involved tracking his assets in foreign countries and investigators had to interview several hundred witnesses in the United States.

In 1996, Ourida Fatima Bessaha filed for divorce. While that was pending, Ali Bessaha - who Nassau prosecutors said was trying to hide joint assets from his wife - allegedly transferred about $400, 000 to two banks in Paris. The accounts were frozen when the divorce judge discovered them, Biancavilla said.

Upon Ourida Fatima Bessaha's death, the couple's divorce was automatically terminated under New York State law, Biancavilla said. The couple's assets became Bessaha's.