French president seeks change to law after
Jewish woman’s killer spared trial
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Macron says country determined to protect Jewish community, after court rules Sarah Halimi’s murderer not responsible for his actions due to being too high on marijuana at the time
By TOI STAFF and AGENCIES
19 April 2021, 8:56 am
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, December 1, 2020.
(Benoit Tessier/Pool/AFP)
French President Emanuel Macron expressed support on Sunday for the country’s Jewish community and its efforts to bring the killer of Sarah Halimi to trial, following a ruling by France’s highest court that Kobili Traore was not criminally responsible due to having smoked marijuana.
And he said he would seek a change to laws to prevent such a case from happening again.
In a rare and controversial critique of France’s justice system, Macron said that taking drugs and “going crazy” should not take away criminal responsibility.
Having criticized a lower court’s insanity finding in January last year, drawing a sharp riposte from the country’s top magistrates, Macron on Sunday expressed support for the battle to bring Traore to trial for the killing.
“It’s not for me to comment on a court decision, but I would like to express to the family, to the relatives of the victim, and to all our Jewish citizens who were waiting for a trial, my warm support and the Republic’s determination to protect them,” Macron told Le Figaro.
Macron said that France “does not judge citizens who are sick, we treat them… But deciding to take drugs and then ‘going crazy’ should not, in my opinion, take away your criminal responsibility.”
He added: “I would like Justice Minister [Eric Dupond-Moretti] to present a change in the law as soon as possible.”
Sarah Halimi, an Orthodox Jewish woman in her sixties, died in 2017 after being pushed out of the window of her Paris flat by neighbor Traore, who shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic).
But in a Wednesday decision, the Court of Cassation’s Supreme Court of Appeals upheld rulings by lower tribunals that Traore cannot stand trial because he was too high on marijuana to be criminally responsible for his actions.
Traore, a heavy pot smoker, has been in psychiatric care since Halimi’s death. The court said he committed the killing after succumbing to a “delirious fit” and was thus not responsible for his actions.
Sarah Halimi was beaten before she was thrown off her Paris apartment building’s roof in April 2017. (Courtesy of the Halimi family)
An appeals court had said Traore, now in his early 30s, had anti-Semitic bias and that the killing was partly connected to it. But it also accepted the defense claims that Traore was too high to be tried for his actions and he was placed at a psychiatric facility.
All radical Muslims should be placed in psychiatric care.
Macron has previously said there was “a need for a trial” even if a judge then decided there was no criminal responsibility.
The court decision, which means that Traore cannot stand trial in any French court, provoked anger from anti-racism groups who say the verdict puts Jews at risk.
Stoking debate over a new strain of anti-Semitism among radicalized Muslim youths in predominantly immigrant neighborhoods, the handling of Halimi’s slaying has been a watershed event for many French Jews, who say it underlines the French state’s failures in dealing with anti-Semitism.
“This is an additional drama that adds to this tragedy,” the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) said after the ruling.
“From now on in our country, you can torture and kill Jews with complete impunity,” added the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), Francis Kalifat.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, Shimon Samuels, called the decision a “devastating blow,” which, he said, “potentially creates a precedent for all hate criminals to simply claim insanity or decide to smoke, snort or inject drugs or even get drunk before committing their crimes.”
French Jews have been repeatedly targeted by jihadists in recent years, most notably in 2012, when an Islamist gunman shot dead three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in the southern city of Toulouse and in 2015 when a pro-Islamic State radical gunned down four people at a Jewish supermarket in Paris.
Following Wednesday’s verdict, lawyers representing Halimi’s family said they intend to refer the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
“It’s a bad message for French Jewish citizens,” said the lawyer for Halimi’s brother, Muriel Ouaknine Melki.
French police administrative officer fatally stabbed,
suspect shot dead at the scene
23 Apr, 2021 13:28
© Bertrand GUAY / AFP
A French police administrative officer was stabbed at the local precinct in Rambouillet, in the Yvelines region. Armed officers shot and arrested the assailant, who later died from their injuries.
The incident occurred at approximately 2:20pm local time when the suspect lunged at the officer with a knife, mortally wounding her. Responding officers opened fire and managed to arrest the suspect at the scene.
French media report the 49-year-old administrative officer went into cardiac arrest at the scene after having her throat slit. The injured woman succumbed to multiple stab wounds moments later after receiving emergency treatment at the scene, according to media reports.
Police sources later confirmed to BFMTV that the suspect had also died of their gunshot wounds. France's counterterrorism police force, the SDAT, has begun assessing the situation while Paris region president Valerie Pecresse said that terrorist motives could not be ruled out.
Despite some media reports to the contrary, police sources denied that the suspect, who was reportedly unknown to French intelligence services, shouted Islamist slogans during the attack.
Media reports indicate the attacker holds Tunisian nationality.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin confirmed the incident in a tweet and said he was en route to the scene in the city of Rambouillet, home to some 26,000 people, located approximately 60km southwest of Paris.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex arrived at the scene as well.
Orphan tortured to death over $4 in Egypt
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14-y/o boy was subjected to horrific torture for 120 minutes for demanding wages
Published: April 25, 2021 13:06
Tawfiq Nasrallah, Senior News Editor, Gulf News
Dubai: A 14-year-old orphaned boy was tortured for two hours by his employer in Egypt simply because of demanding his daily wage of 50 Egyptian pounds ($3.80), local media reported. He died from the abuse.
The boy was said to be working at a poultry slaughterhouse for seven months before the crime took place.
Police investigations also revealed that “the victim’s torture party began when he asked the slaughterhouse owners to give him his daily wage the previous day, saying that he can no longer continue working at the slaughterhouse because someone was harassing him and pressuring him throughout the day for continuous work without rest".
For that simple reason, the suspects (slaughterhouse owners) started beating and torturing the child with fire causing his health condition to deteriorate seriously, which prompted them to take him to a nearby clinic where doctors told them that the child had gone into a coma and must be taken very quickly to the hospital to save his life. However, he was declared dead upon arrival at Al Saadin Central Hospital in Minya Al Qamh.
According to Al Watan Newspaper, the forensic report revealed that the boy suffered from burns and bruises on different parts of his body, and that was clearly visible. Meanwhile, the owners of the slaughterhouse claimed that they found the boy’s body lying in front of the slaughterhouse. The defendants denied committing the crime before the Public Prosecution, although all available evidence shows that they were the killers.
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