Thousands of people gathered Sunday in Paris and Marseille to demand "justice for Sarah" Halimi, a Jewish sixty-year-old woman killed in 2017, and to demand a trial for her presumed murderer, declared criminally irresponsible, AFP journalists found .
On December 19, the Paris Court of Appeal declared Kobili Traore, indicted for the murder, criminally irresponsible. The judges considered that this cannabis user was then in the grip of a “delusional whiff”. He cannot therefore be judged at the assizes. This decision angered the civil parties and representatives of the Jewish community.
"Inconsistencies and dysfunctions"
"Justice for Sarah", chanted several hundred demonstrators gathered at Place de la République in Paris, while others, coming in scooters and motorcycles, sounded their horns. Around the base of the statue, a banner proclaimed: "Sarah killed because Jewish".
In the gallery, William Attal, the brother of Lucie Attal, the victim - also called Sarah Halimi - denounced the "inconsistencies and dysfunctions" in his eyes of the investigation carried out for two years, judging that his sister had been victim of "an anti-Semitic religious crime".
Muriel Ouaknine Melki, William Attal's lawyer, described the December 19 decision as "a decision of shame", demanding a trial at the assizes. The writer Marek Halter, also present at the Paris rally, warned against a decision which he said could "introduce new case law".
In Marseille, 2,500 people according to the police paraded from the prefecture to the courthouse, waving ironic signs: "smoke joints, nothing will happen to you". Among them, many elected officials, including several candidates for the municipal elections in March.
“I am very worried about this court decision which has just been taken (…) Faced with such an unfair situation, if everyone can find themselves behind the blue-white-red banner, that's good! ", Said AFP Renaud Muselier, president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region.
"I couldn't stay at home today"
An evangelical pastor, Frédéric Baudin, came to express his "support" for the Jews: "I am indignant with you about the absence of trial and judgment," he said to the crowd. Léa, in her sixties, came with the family for this gathering, "as a Jew and as a citizen". "He massacred Sarah Halimi, he defenestrated her, and all that in indifference?" I couldn't stay at home today, ”she said.
At the end of December, the chief rabbi of France Haïm Korsia, who did not participate in the rally on Sunday, had released an open letter addressed to the Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet, indignant that the "suspect could escape justice" and fearing that this decision amounts to issuing "a license to kill the Jews".
Relying on several expert reports, the Court of Appeal had estimated in December that there were "sufficient charges against Kobili Traore for (…) voluntarily killing" Sarah Halimi, with the aggravating circumstance of anti-Semitism , while declaring him "criminally irresponsible due to a psychic or neuropsychic disorder which has abolished his discernment".
Justice
Murder of Sarah Halimi: The main suspect, Kobili Traoré, declared criminally irresponsible
Justice
Murder of Sarah Halimi: Will Kobili Traore, the main suspect, ever be tried?
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- Murder
- Jewish
- Demonstration
- anti-Semitism
- rally