French intellectuals decry 'cover-up' of Jew’s slaying by Muslim neighbor
"Sarah died as the media remained quasi-indifferent.”
By JTAFrench police officers [Illustrative](photo credit: REUTERS)
A European Parliament member and 17 prominent French intellectuals protested the omission of antisemitism from a draft indictment of a Muslim for the murder of his Jewish neighbor.Frédérique Ries, a lawmaker from Belgium, on Thursday criticized during a speech in parliament French authorities’ handling of the investigation into the April 4 incident, in which Sarah Halimi was tortured and thrown out of her third-story apartment to her death, allegedly by 27-year-old Kobili Traore, who lived in her building.“French authorities have treated her murder with icy silence,” Ries, who is Jewish, said in reference to the fact that Traore, who had no history of mental illness, was placed at a psychiatric institution and has not been charged with a hate crime despite evidence suggesting he killed Halimi because she was Jewish.“No national mobilization for Sarah, she died as the media remained quasi-indifferent.”Last week, 17 French intellectuals, including the historian Georges Bensoussan and the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, published a scathing criticism of the handling of the incident by French authorities and the media.The omission of hate crime charges from a draft indictment being prepared for voluntary manslaughter against Traore by the Paris Prosecutor’s Office has angered many French Jews, who cited a voice recording of the incident made by another neighbor of Sarah. In it, according to the Tribune Juive weekly, Traore is heard shouting “Allah hu akbar,” “Allah is the greatest” in Arabic, calling Sarah “Satan” and calmly praying after her killing.The prosecutor’s office said it would seek to try Traore on April 14, ten days after the incident.“Everything about this crime suggests there is an ongoing denial of reality” by authorities, the intellectuals wrote, citing also testimonies of neighbors who said Traore had called Halimi a “dirty Jew” to her face and called her relatives “dirty Jews” as well in the past.“We demand all the truth be brought to light in the murder of Sarah Halimi,” wrote the intellectuals.The incident occurred month before a general election in which the French political establishment was bracing for unprecedented gains for the far-right National Front party, which opposes immigration to France from Muslim countries and seeks to limit public expressions of that faith. Marine Le Pen, the party’s president, received a historic third of the vote in the final round of the presidential elections, which she lost to the centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron.