French Justice Minister Won’t Intervene In Jewish Woman’s Murder Case
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — Citing the constitutional principle of separation of powers, France’s justice minister said she would not intervene in the trial of a killer whom French Jews said should be charged with a hate crime.
The minister, Nicole Belloubet, said this at the beginning of a meeting she had with the president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, Francis Kalifat and two of his deputies, CRIF said in a statement. The meeting was about the April 4 slaying of Sarah Halimi, a physician an teacher in her sixties. A neighbor, Kobili Traore, hit her and threw her out of the window of her third-story apartment in Paris.
Traore prayed for Allah during the incident, which he has admitted perpetrating but maintains was the result of temporary insanity. He has no record of mental illness. Halimi’s daughter said Traore had called her, the daughter, a “dirty Jew” in the elevator of her mother’s building.
Kalifat and many other leaders of France’s Jewish community said Traore’s behavior suggests the killing of Halimi was the result of an anti-Semitic hate crime and demanded he be prosecuted accordingly. However, an indictment filked against him id not mention anti-Semitism or any other aggravating element. CRIF have called this a cover up.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
