The Paris prosecutor's office appealed on Monday the order of investigating judges charged with the investigation of the murder of the Jewish sexagenarian Sarah Halimi in 2017 in Paris, in which they considered "plausible" the abolition of the discernment of the suspect .
The hypothesis of the judges, signified Friday in an order, rekindled the fear of civil parties that the suspect, Kobili Traoré, 29, is never tried, while the Paris prosecutor's office had asked June 17 for his dismissal before a court Assize for "anti-Semitic" homicide.
The plaintiffs' lawyers had announced their intention to appeal
According to a source close to the case, the magistrates instructors, as provided by law, had to seize the chamber of instruction "to assess the medical and legal consequences" to give to this case, which triggered two years ago a live media debate. On Friday, plaintiffs' lawyers had already announced their intention to appeal the order.
On the night of April 3 to 4, 2017 in Paris, Kobili Traoré, taken by a "delirious puff", according to experts, had introduced herself to her neighbor Lucie Attal - also called Sarah Halimi -, aged 65, third floor of a HLM building in the popular Belleville neighborhood, after crossing the apartment of a family of friends who had barricaded themselves in a room. At the cries of "Allah Akbar", interspersed with insults and verses from the Koran, this young Muslim beat her on her balcony before throwing her into the courtyard.
According to three expert reports, the suspect does not suffer from mental illness
Three psychiatric expertises carried out during the investigation concur that the young man, without a psychiatric history, does not suffer from mental illness but acted in a "delirious puff" caused by heavy cannabis use. They diverge, however, on the question of the abolition or alteration of his discernment.
In their order, revealed by Le Parisien , the judges finally consider that there are "plausible reasons" to conclude the abolition of the discernment of Kobili Traoré at the time of the facts, in other words to his criminal irresponsibility. They also dismiss "the aggravating circumstance of the anti-Semitic character" of the murder, according to a source familiar with the case.
This case had revived the debate on anti-Semitism in some neighborhoods under the effect of an identity Islam, controversy revived a year later by the murder of a Jewish octogenarian in Paris, Mireille Knoll.