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Description[edit]

Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish woman, mother of three children and a retired physician,^[1] was beaten and defenestrated. It is uncertain if she was killed before the fall or if death occurred as a result of the fall. This occurred at her residence, a 3rd floor apartment in the Belleville district of Paris on 4 April 2017.^[2]^[3] The murder was committed by a 27-year-old neighbor, a drug dealer and drug addict who claimed insanity despite having no previous history of mental illness, and was promptly held in a psychiatric hospital.^[4]^[5]

The alleged murderer is a Muslim African from Mali.^[6] Enraged after a family dispute, he entered the apartment of a different family, who immediately locked themselves into a bedroom, phoned police for help, and waited in fear as they listened to the intruder reciting verses from the Quran.^[5] Police responded but are thought to have first gone to the wrong building while the intruder climbed via a balcony from the apartment where the family was sheltering behind a locked door, to the apartment of Halimi, known locally as the sole Jew in the building.^[5] When police finally arrived at the apartment the intruder had entered first, they deferred entering while awaiting the arrival of an elite squad, while more phone calls came in to the police emergency hotline reporting a woman screaming as a man apparently beat her and shouted "shut your mouth," Allahu Akbar, and "I killed the Shaitan" (the demon, or Satan, in Arabic).^[5]^[7]^[5]^[4] After throwing Sarah Halimi out of the third- floor window, the attacker returned to the first apartment where the family, still cowering in a room and awaiting the police, again heard him praying aloud.^[5]^[8]

As a result of the insanity claim and of the hospitalization, the suspect has not yet faced murder charges. Judicial experts are determining if the insanity claims are valid.^[9]

The second district of the judicial police (2nd DPJ) of Paris is responsible for the investigation. On 7 April 2017, the prosecutor of Paris, François Molins, declared that it was not an antisemitic murder.^[10]

A criminal case was opened for deliberate homicide with public prosecutor François Molins in charge of the investigation. The Libération newspaper brought many new details about the murderer's past on June 6, 2017.^[10] The murderer had never been confined to a psychiatric hospital before, but had spent several years in prison for acts of delinquency, aggravated violence and drug dealing.

The murderer was placed in custody. A toxicological analysis revealed the presence of cannabis in his blood. After a debate with the police, the doctor judged his psychiatric state incompatible with the custody^{[clarification needed]} and the suspect was transferred to the hospital without a hearing.^{[citation needed]}

The results of the psychiatric assessment were planned for mid-June and then postponed until the end of August.^{[citation needed]}

Juridical procedure and complaints[edit]

Sarah Halimi's sister-in-law lodged a complaint on 20 June 2017 to denounce the inertia of the police its lack of coordination.^[11] The murderer has still under psychiatric care but the results of his psychiatric evaluation still had not been published.

On 10 July 2017, the suspect was apprehended and heard by the investigating judge. He recognized the facts about the murder, while denying any antisemitic motivation: "I felt like possessed. I felt oppressed by an external force, a demonic force". He attributes his condition to cannabis consumption.^[12]

On 12 July 2017, Kobili Traoré was "charged with intentional homicide to the detriment of Mrs Attal-Halimi and for forcible confinement" by the neighboring family via whose apartment he climbed into Halimi's apartment. He was placed under warrant but remained in hospital. Brigitte Kuster, the member of the 17th arrondissement of Paris, referred the matter to the Minister of the Interior.^[13]

Political responses[edit]

The London Times reported on 23 May 2017 that according to Jean-Alexandre Buchinger, an attorney for the victim's family, the murderer ought to have been charged with "murder with antisemitism as an aggravating circumstance", and also that French Jewish groups were alleging that this had not been done out of fear of encouraging support for the National Front (France) party's election campaign.^[14]

On 16 July 2017, Francis Kalifat, President of the CRIF, emphasized the antisemitic nature of the murder during the commemoration of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup. The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron then asked the court to clarify the matter despite the alleged murderer's claims.^[15]^[16]^[17]

On 1 June 2017, Belgian MEP in the European Parliament, Frédérique Ries denounced the French authorities' "silent silence" over the murder of Sarah Halimi during a debate in the European Parliament on the fight against antisemitism.^[18]^[4]

Public reaction[edit]

The Washington Post covered the story in the context of discussing a broad reluctance on the part of French media and investigators to label attacks as "terrorism".^[19], comparing it to the 2006 Killing of Ilan Halimi (not a close relative of Sarah Halimi)^[20]^[21]^:p.35 in which French authorities similarly refused to acknowledge the antisemitic nature of the murder.^[19]

The murder has generated significant public reactions in France and worldwide, with intellectual, media, political and Jewish communal voices demanding that antisemitism and Islamic terrorism be investigated as possible motives, and accusing both the French government and press of a coverup.^[19]^[5]^[4] Paris prosecutor François Molins received representatives of the the Jewish community and attempted to reassure them that the issue is not one of antisemitism, but that the possibility is being investigated.^[22]^[23] According to Gilles-William Goldnadel, a French political commentator and attorney for the Halimi family, Dr. Halimi's murderer "Had the profile of a radical Islamist, and yet somehow there is a resistance to call a spade a spade.”^[19]

French journalist Marc Weitzmann published a long article accusing the French government and press of covering up this and other acts of violent antisemitism on 25 May 2017 in the American magazine Tablet.^[5]

Philosopher Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine published an open letter on 25 May 2017 in the newspaper Atlantico entitled "From Ilan to Sarah Halimi, France unworthy" and addressed it to Gérard Collomb, appointed Minister of the Interior a week earlier, in which she denounced "one country where it has once again become possible to assassinate Jews without our countrymen being overly disturbed "and" the deliquescent atmosphere that reigns in the country of Dieudonné".^[24]

Seventeen intellectuals, including Michel Onfray, Élisabeth Badinter, Jacques Julliard, Georges Bensoussan, Alain Finkielkraut and Marcel Gauchet, published on 2 June 2017 the lede article in Le Figaro newspaper asking that "all the light be made on the death of this French woman of Jewish confession killed at the cries of "Allah Akbar". They denounce "the denial of the real" and the fact that "this crime of a rare barbarism, which took place in the middle of the presidential campaign, received little attention from the media".^[25]^[4]

On 5 June 2017, Bernard-Henri Levy once more stressed the fact that, although Sarah Halimi was tortured and defenestrated at the cry of "Allahu Akbar", justice and the press "are reluctant to pronounce the word 'antisemitism'".^[26]

The same day, the former high magistrate Philippe Bilger evokes the case Sarah Halimi in a forward article published by Le Figaro.^[27] He recalled that the murderer (named Kobili Traoré) allegedly shouted, according to some witnesses, "Allahu Akbar" and the Jewish victim, aged 65, a former school principal, had lived for thirty years in Belleville. This crime was perpetrated while the police was waiting for reinforcements to assault. He said: "During that night, the police would have intervened late. It would have taken an hour between the first appeal and the criminal act "but we have only the grievances of the relatives of the victim. Above all, Philippe Bilger writes that the suspect in question was interned and that it is, therefore, possible that he would later be "declared irresponsible criminally". He, therefore, considers it necessary to abstain "as horrible as murder or even murder if the anti-Semitic inspiration could characterize it".

On 6 June 2017, the columnist Gérard Leclerc of Catholic Radio Notre-Dame denounced the media silence.^[28]

On 8 June 2017, Michel Onfray wonders in a video about the silence surrounding this murder: "How can we kill this poor lady twice? By not giving this information the echo that it deserved, it was to consider that the echo of this murder counted for nothing". He adds that "whenever there is an escalation in terror, there is an escalation in the denial of terror. Every real is today evacuated and swept 'if it is likely to play the game of the National Front (France)'. But reality always avenges itself one day".^[29]

On 13 July 2017, the CRIF posted a newsletter on the topic. It reminds that the murder occurred a hundred days ago, but that the suspect was still under examination for voluntary homicide while the aggravating circumstance of antisemitism was not retained. It asked: "Why this antisemitic denialism?".^[30]

Public protests[edit]

The "white march", a gathering of one to two thousand people, was organized on 9 April 2017 by the Representative Council of the Jewish Institutions of France (Crif) to demand that the actual facts be revealed to the public. BFM TV adds in this dispatch that the victim, before being defenestrated, was also beaten. The itinerary started at the local subway station Belleville to end at the location of Sarah Halimi's death. Observers were also following the march from their window. "It was a drug addict", exclaimed a neighbor. Some participants attempted to enter the building where Halimi lived, kicking on the door. White roses were placed at the building's entrance.^[31]

Some sources insist that the peaceful march was brutally stopped by the French police after some participants displaying Israel flags started singing the Israel national anthem (after they already sung the French anthem).^[32]^[33]^{[verification needed]}

Media coverage[edit]

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, London Jewish Chronicle and Times of Israel carried the story immediatly after the murder occurred, flagging the killing as a possible hate crime.^[34]^[35]^[36]^[37]

Le Monde did not publish the story until 23 June, when it finally ran a story raising the question of antisemitism.^[38]

Gilles-William Goldnadel, a lawyer for the victim's sister, expressed in the center-right leaning Le Figaro on 22 May: "the assassin presents the classic profile of the usual Islamist criminals [...] But what tightens The heart of man and of the lawyer, is called public indifference", highlighting the suspect's judicial past.^[39]

The French Jewish press belatedly reported on the matter on 9 June 2017, asserting that based on evidence and witnesses, nothing confirmed an antisemitic character to the crime, expressing confidence in the authorities and urgintg French Jews not to spread rumors on social media.^[40]^[41]

Thomas Bidnic, a lawyer for the suspected murderer of Sarah Halimi, said on 31 May, that the suspect, still in psychiatric confinement, could possibly not be tried.^[42]

Halimi's career[edit]

Her son, who also mentioned his two sisters, described Dr. Sarah Halimi as having "studied medicine for seven years, and was a family practitioner."^[21]^:p.34 Years later, in the process of raising her children together with her late husband, a psychologist, she decided to apply for an open position as director of a government-funded preschool that "became famous across Paris."

References[edit]

Jump up

[1] "Sarah Halimi, défenestrée par un de ses voisins dans le XIème à Paris". Tribunejuive.info (in French). 5 April 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[2] Jump up^ BFMTV. "Femme défenestrée à Paris: le voisin interpellé, interné en psychiatrie". BFMTV (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[3] Jump up^ Mickiewicz, Juliette (12 July 2017). "Affaire Sarah Halimi : le suspect mis en examen pour meurtre". Lefigaro.fr (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017 – via Le Figaro.

[4] Jump up to:a b c d e "News Brief French intellectuals accuse authorities of covering up Jewish woman’s slaying by Muslim neighbor". JTA. 9 June 2017. Retrieved 29 August 2017.

[5] Jump up to:a b c d e f g h Weitzmann, Marc (25 May 2017). "Sarah Halimi Was Beaten to Death in Paris By a Muslim Attacker Reciting Verses From the Quran. The Press Covered it Up.". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved 29 August 2017.

[6] Jump up^ Devecchio, Alexandre (17 July 2017). "Le meurtre de Sarah Halimi, une tragédie contemporaine". Lefigaro.fr. Retrieved 29 July 2017 – via Le Figaro.

[7] Jump up^ "Cette vieille dame assassinée qui panique la communauté juive et dont on parle peu". Slate.fr (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[8] Jump up^ Kovacs, Stéphane (18 July 2017). "Affaire Sarah Halimi : ce que révèle le dossier". Lefigaro.fr (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017 – via Le Figaro.

[9] Jump up^ "Suspect in brutal murder of French-Jewish woman may not be tried". Timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[10] Jump up to:a b "Meurtre sauvage à Paris : démence ou antisémitisme ?". Liberation.fr (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[11] Jump up^ "Meurtre de Sarah Halimi: ses proches dénoncent 'l'inertie de la police'". Lexpress.fr (in French). 23 June 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[12] Jump up^ ""Je l'ai jetée par la fenêtre": les déclarations du tueur présumé de Sarah Halimi". Lexpress.fr (in French). 13 July 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[13] Jump up^ "Brigitte Kuster saisit le ministre de l’Intérieur au sujet du meurtre de Sarah Halimi - Brigitte KUSTER - Députée de Paris". Brigittekuster.fr (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[14] Jump up^ Adam Sage (23 May 2017). "Antisemitic killing ‘hushed up for election campaigns’". The Times. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[15] Jump up^ "Macron veut que "toute la clarté" soit faite sur le meurtre de Sarah Halimi". Lexpress.fr(in French). 16 July 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[16] Jump up^ "EN DIRECT. Commémoration de la rafle du Vel D'Hiv: "C'est bien la France qui organisa la rafle", déclare Emmanuel Macron...". www.20minutes.fr. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[17] Jump up^ RUSSELL GOLDMAN (17 July 2017). "Macron Denounces Anti-Zionism as ‘Reinvented Form of Anti-Semitism’". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 August 2017. [France President Macron] also called for an investigation into the death of Sarah Halimi, a 66-year-old woman who in April was thrown from the window of her Paris apartment

[18] Jump up^ i24NEWS. "Sarah Halimi: une députée Belge dénonce "le silence glaçant des autorités"". I24news.tv (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[19] Jump up to:a b c d McAuley, James (23 July 2017). "In France, murder of a Jewish woman ignites debate over the word ‘terrorism’". Washington Post. Retrieved 29 August 2017.

[20] Jump up^ The Washington Post story said "no relation to" but a subsequent in-depth article, published in a different periodical, that named and quoted a number of relatives, said "a distant relative"

[21] Jump up to:a b Horowitz, Simi (26 July 2017). "Terror in Paris". Ami Living. pages 32-39.

[22] Jump up^ Askolovitch, Claude (7 April 2017). "Cette vieille dame assassinée qui panique la communauté juive et dont on parle peu". SlateFr (in French). Retrieved 3 August 2017.

[23] Jump up^ "French Jewish Anger Grows Over Savage Antisemitic Murder of Pensioner at Hands of Muslim in Paris Suburb". Algemeiner.com. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[24] Jump up^ "Lettre ouverte à Gérard Collomb : d’Ilan à Sarah Halimi, la France indigne". Atlantico.fr(in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[25] Jump up^ lefigaro.fr (1 June 2017). "L'appel de 17 intellectuels: "Que la vérité soit dite sur le meurtre de Sarah Halimi"". Lefigaro.fr (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017 – via Le Figaro.

[26] Jump up^ "De Manchester à Jénine". La Règle du Jeu (in French). 5 June 2017. Retrieved 29 July2017.

[27] Jump up^ Bilger, Philippe (5 June 2017). "Affaire Sarah Halimi : le point de vue de Philippe Bilger". Lefigaro.fr (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017 – via Le Figaro.

[28] Jump up^ "L’éditorial de Gérard Leclerc – 6 juin 2017 : Un gros malaise". Radionotredame.net (in French). 6 June 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[29] Jump up^ "Michel Onfray : "Sarah Halimi a été tuée deux fois"". Lepoint.fr (in French). 8 June 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[30] Jump up^ "Assassinat de Sarah Halimi, déjà 100 jours. L'assassin a été mis en examen pour homicide volontaire, mais la circonstance aggravante d'antisémitisme n'est pas retenue. Pourquoi ce déni d'antisémitisme ?". Crif.org (in French). 13 July 2017. Retrieved 29 July2017.

[31] Jump up^ BFMTV. "Paris: marche en hommage à une femme juive défenestrée par un voisin". BFMTV (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[32] Jump up^ "Убийство Сары Халими в Париже: тысячи французских евреев вышли на "белый марш"". Stmegi.com (in Russian). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[33] Jump up^ "Убийство Сары Халими в Париже: две тысячи французских евреев вышли на "белый марш"". Newsru.co.il (in Russian). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[34] Jump up^ Harpin, Lee (5 April 2017). "Man arrested after Jewish woman found dead outside her Paris flat Watchdog suggests possible hate motive". Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 29 August 2017.

[35] Jump up^ Sitbon, Shirli (7 April 2017). "Hate motive 'possible' in alleged murder of Orthodox woman in Paris". Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 29 August 2017.

[36] Jump up^ "Jewish woman found dead outside her Paris home Police arrest suspect in death of Sarah Halimi, 66; anti-Semitism watchdog doesn’t rule out racially motivated murder". Times of Israel. JTA. 5 April 2017. Retrieved 29 August 2017.

[37] Jump up^ "La presse française se penche sur l’affaire Sarah Halimi". Fr.timesofisrael.com (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[38] Jump up^ Couvelaire, Louise (23 May 2017). "Sarah Halimi a-t-elle été tuée " parce qu’elle était juive ? "" [Was Sarah Halimi killed because she was Jewish?]. Lemonde.fr (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017 – via Le Monde.

[39] Jump up^ Goldnadel, Gilles William (22 May 2017). "G-W Goldnadel : " Ce que révèle l'indifférence vis-à-vis de la mort de Sarah Halimi "". Lefigaro.fr (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017 – via Le Figaro.

[40] Jump up^ "Affaire Sarah Halimi-Attal : François Molins chargé de l’enquête". Tribunejuive.info (in French). 7 April 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[41] Jump up^ Nadjar, Steve. "Sarah Halimi assassinée: un témoin direct se confie à Actualité juive". Actualités Juives (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

[42] Jump up^ "Vers une "irresponsabilité pénale" pour le suspect du meurtre de Sarah Halimi ?". Fr.timesofisrael.com (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2017.

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Friday, September 1, 2017

Murder of Sarah Halimi claimed insanity