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The kidnap, torture and murder of French Jew: trial begins today

by Amy Judd | April 29, 2009 at 04:57 pm

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The trial began today of a gang who are accused of the kidnap, torture, and murder of a French Jewish man, a mobile phone salesman who was tortured over three weeks. It is believed that the gang thought 'all Jews are loaded' and his family would be able to pay a huge ransom for him.

Ilan Halimi, 23, was found naked with his head shaved, in handcuffs and covered with burn marks and stab wounds near rail tracks outside Paris in February 2006. In a state of shock and unable to speak, he died en route to hospital. He had been held, tortured and beaten for three weeks, his head wrapped in tape, eyes Sellotaped shut and fed through a straw, while a gang known as the Barbarians demanded a ransom from his family.

After Halimi's death, tens of thousands of people marched to bring attention to his death, and the police started to treat it as a hate crime.

When the leader of the Barbarians gang, Youssouf Fofana, appeared in court today, he arrived shouting 'Allah will be victorious', and if convicted he faces life in prison.
He is on trial along with 26 other defendants, 15 of whom are accused of taking part in the event. The rest are accused of witholding information from the police.

Halimi lived with him mum in the eastern area of Paris and he worked in a mobile phone shop. It is thought that Fofana spotted Halimi one day and asked a female friend to lure him into a trap. This female friend found another girl who agreed to ask Halimi out for a coke and she took him back to what he thought was her home, but he was knocked out and taken to an abandoned flat on the Barbarians estate in Bagneux.

It was there that Halimi was subjected to beatings with broom handles, he was bound, and a ransom was made of 450,000 Euros to his family. The gang called his family numerous times, and they left videos of a crying and beaten Hamili around Paris and told his family where to find them. He was kept for 24 days.

After 10 days, he was taken to a basement where he was burned with cigarettes and slashed with knives. Halimi's father refused to go hand over the ransom money and a few days later his son's body was dumped, but it is thought that Fofana stabbed him, covered him with alcohol, and set him on fire first.

Halimi's sister, Anne-Laure, told Le Parisien: "They attacked Ilan because they thought the Jewish community was rich. That was their explanation in 2006, after the events. It's not acceptable. It's not possible that there are still these types of crimes, acts this disgusting because someone belongs to a particular religion."

The trial is behind closed doors, in a juvenile court, as two of the accused were under 18 at the time of the crime. It is expected to go on for 10 weeks.

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Paschen

at 17:49 on April 29th, 2009

This better be conducted properly and not turned into another affair Dreifuss. This trial was a disaster and a disgrace for France, still vividly remembered by most in central Europe, since it was the beginning of some thing we would know today as the Holocaust and the creation of Israel as well as the persecution of the Palestinian. (History bites.)

In 1899 Herzl said: “The Dreifuss trial turned me into a Zionist".

Herzl was born in 1860 in Budapest, Hungary, and was educated in the spirit of the Jewish-German Haskalah of the time.
In 1878 he moved with his family to Vienna, where he completed his law studies. After a year of practicing law he started writing. He published stories and plays, some of which were performed in Austria and in Germany.
In 1881 Herzl started to serve as the Paris correspondent of the Viennese Neue Freie Presse. When anti-Semitism in France mounted, his interest in the Jewish question increased. His coverage of the Dreifuss Affair in the years 1894-95 led him to the conclusion that there was only one solution to the Jewish problem – the departure of the Jews from their countries of residence, and their concentration in a territory of their own, in which they could maintain sovereign independence.

Shi-ren Hou

at 17:18 on April 29th, 2009

What an appalling tragedy.

albertacowpoke

at 18:01 on April 29th, 2009

Maybe that.s why they moved it behind closed doors to avoid media and public influence and keep it impartial.

Fred Miller

at 18:17 on April 29th, 2009

I would think it's to avoid public interference, outrage and violence that they are behind closed doors.

There have been numerous Indians here in Texas and in New York/New Jersey who have been tortured, beaten, shot and robbed based on the assumption that Indians, being Doctors, Jewelers and Property Owners are filthy rich.

Amy Judd

at 18:35 on April 29th, 2009

I find it terrible how this kind of thinking still exists.

VC (not verified)

at 09:09 on April 30th, 2009

Just another example of muslims using their religion to justify homicide... when are europeans going to wake up and realize that the problem is the ideology of ISLAM!!!! or should we just wait for another incident like this ... or another daniel Pearl beheading.... or 9-11, or Spanish train bombing... or london bus bombing.. and on and on and on... WAKE UP!!!!!

D.Jackson (not verified)

at 17:24 on April 30th, 2009

I have to agree with VC. I am not Jewish nor would I support any Zionism that justifies the illegal oppression of another peoples; but, I have to say that the correlation between a large rise in anti-semitism in countries with large muslim communities is a fact. Factor in the centuries old European tradition of anti-semitism which is now disguised, especially by many left wing persuasion, as a legitmate dislike of Israel. Fair enough, but scratch below the surface and into their heart of darkness and you will find the old adage of a dislike for the jew as stereotyped.

Why? Lets not forget Hitler was a National SOCIALIST, of course he hated communism, but it was also a dislike of the jew as representative of a stereotyped purveyor of a greedy capitalism, left wingers also have this annoyance and take the moral high ground on greed-though how many are bourgeois and middle class is also a mute point.

To pander to Islam because of a liberal guilt multiculturalism will, in countries such as the UK, in years to come change the cultural and political landscape. Is this good? Well just take a look at only a few of the examples VC has given which have been done in the name of Allah.