Sarah Halimi murder case

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The murder case Sarah Halimi encompasses the circumstances of the murder of the Jewish French woman Sarah Halimi in Paris on April 4, 2017. The suspect is Kobili T. , who comes from Mali . The case also received special attention because the police, judiciary and media were accused of the public Insufficiently informed and downplayed a suspected anti-Semitic background.

Sequence of events

On April 4, 2017, Sarah Attal-Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish woman, mother of three, retired doctor and former head of a preschool, was severely abused in her apartment in Paris' 11th arrondissement on Rue de Vaucouleurs in the Belleville district and subsequently pushed out the window. It is uncertain whether Halimi died as a result of falling from the third floor or was previously killed.

Suspect is the 27-year-old Muslim Kobili T. from Mali , who lived in the same house as the murdered woman and was known to the police as a drug addict. The murder was preceded by a quarrel in the Ts family. At about 4 a.m., he went to friends who lived in the neighboring house in an angry mood. Their apartment is directly adjacent to that of Sarah Halimi. In the apartment he is said to have become increasingly aggressive and behaved so abnormally that the friends and their children frightened locked themselves in the bedroom and called the police. While they waited there, they heard the intruder reciting verses from the Quran. The police responded to the emergency call, but initially appear to have been looking in the wrong building.

Meanwhile, T. climbed over the balcony to Halimi's adjoining apartment, who was known to everyone in the building as a Jew. When the police finally arrived at the right apartment from which the first emergency call had come, they waited in front of the door for a special unit to arrive. Other callers to the emergency call center reported a screaming woman who was obviously beaten and shouts of " Allahu akbar " and "I killed the Scheitan ". In the meantime, another police unit (brigade anti-criminalité) had arrived and took up position in the courtyard of the building. Before their eyes, Sarah Halimi was pushed out of the window of her apartment on the third floor. After the murder, T. returned via the balcony to the apartment of the family he knew, who heard him praying loudly from the bedroom. At around 5:35 a.m., the special unit that had arrived broke into the apartment and arrested Kobili T. without resistance.

In the police custody, T. rioted so violently that the medical officer who was summoned declared him incapable of detention and had him admitted to psychiatry. Until then, T. had been noticed as violent, but not as mentally confused.

Legal proceedings

Because Ts was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, the police initially had no way of interrogating him. Sarah Halimi's sister-in-law filed a criminal complaint on June 20, 2017, denouncing indolence and lack of coordination in police work. On July 10, 2017, T. testified before the judge that he had not acted out of anti-Semitism. Rather, he felt possessed by an external power that he felt was demonic. He attributes his condition to the consumption of cannabis.

On July 12, 2017, Kobili T. was charged with "willful killing to the detriment of Attal-Halimi and the deprivation of liberty of the neighboring D. family", through whose balcony he had entered Halimi's apartment. With a toxicological analysis cannabis could be detected in the blood Ts. This worsened the state of madness, attested on September 4, 2017 the psychiatrist Daniel Zagury, who was commissioned with a psychiatric report . However, since the drug was taken voluntarily, it was assumed that the drug was partially responsible. The fact that the victim had been diabolized for being Jewish indicates the anti-Semitic background of the crime. On the basis of this expert opinion, the public prosecutor's office asked the presiding judge to take into account the anti-Semitic motives in the proceedings. This was also underlined by Jean-Alex Buchinger, lawyer for Sarah Halimi's bereaved relatives. Since the T. family moved into the house, there has been a latently anti-Semitic climate. The sister Kobili Ts repeatedly insulted Halimi's daughter in the stairwell and also pushed her. Known Ts remembered praying all afternoon in the mosque the day before the murder. And while he was about to throw his victim out of the window, he is said to have called to the policemen in the courtyard to be careful because the woman wanted to kill herself. All of this indicates a conscious and anti-Semitic motivated act.

Public reactions and media coverage

The murder of Sarah Halimi generated widespread public reaction in France and around the world. Both the French government and the media were criticized for trying to cover up the anti-Semitic motive for the act. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency , Jewish Chronicle and Times of Israel immediately reported the murder of Sarah Halimi as a possible hate crime .

On April 9, 2017, around a thousand people followed the call of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France to commemorate the murdered Sarah Halimi.

Gilles-William Goldnadel, lawyer for the victim's sister, said in Le Figaro on May 22, 2017 that “the murderer has the classic profile of a typical Islamist criminal [...] But what pulls the heart of the man and lawyer together most, [...] that is public indifference. ”The London Times reported on May 23, 2017 that the murder of Sarah Halimi had not been classified as anti-Semitic, as it was feared that this could benefit the election campaign of the right-wing populist Front National . The French journalist Marc Weitzmann published an extensive article on May 25, 2017 in which he accused the French government and the media of not wanting to label the murder of Halimi and other acts of violence as anti-Semitism. Also on May 25, 2017, the philosopher Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine published an open letter to the Interior Minister Gérard Collomb , who had been appointed a week earlier , in which she described France as “a country in which it has once again become possible to murder Jews without ours Fellow citizens would be too concerned about it, ”described.

On June 1, 2017, the Belgian MEP Frédérique Ries denounced the “silent silence” of the French authorities in the case of Sarah Halimis in a parliamentary debate on the fight against anti-Semitism. On June 2, 2017, the daily Le Figaro published an appeal from seventeen leading intellectuals, including Michel Onfray , Élisabeth Badinter , Jacques Julliard , Georges Bensoussan , Alain Finkielkraut and Marcel Gauchet , that “light must be shed on the death of a French woman of Jewish faith, who was killed while shouting 'Allah Akbar' ”. They criticized the "denial of reality" and that "this barbaric crime, which took place in the middle of the presidential election campaign, received so little media attention". The publicist Bernard-Henri Lévy also pointed out on June 5, 2017 that although Sarah Halimi was tortured under the cry of "Allahu Akbar" and pushed out the window, the case was not treated as anti-Semitic. On June 8, 2017, the writer Michel Onfray criticized the media silence about the Sarah Halimis case as her second murder in a video and added: “Every time there is an increase in terror, an increase in denial of horror follows. Every fact is emptied and swept aside when it is suitable to advance the cause of the Front National. But reality will one day take revenge. "

In Germany, too, initially only Jewish media took up the topic, such as Danny Leder on April 9, 2017 in haGalil , and also criticized the silence of the French majority society, such as Philipp Peyman Engels in the Jüdische Allgemeine on June 22, 2017. The second most important French daily Le Monde only reported on June 23, 2017 about anti-Semitism as a motive for murder. The first article in a major German-language daily newspaper appeared in Die Welt on July 1, 2017 .

During the commemoration of the Rafle du Vélodrome d'Hiver on July 16, 2017, Francis Kalifat, President of the Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France , highlighted the anti-Semitic nature of the murder. The French President Emmanuel Macron called on the judiciary to bring “comprehensive clarity” into the case “despite the suspect's denials”. The fact that President Macron spoke about it brought the case further international attention. In the taz , Rudolf Balmer asked whether the Sarah Halimi case was symptomatic of what Caroline Valentin, co-author of Une France Soumise , had described as the systematic denial of the new Islamic anti-Semitism by society and the government in order to promote social peace in the suburbs not to endanger. The Washington Post published an article on July 23, 2017, citing the Halimis case as an example of widespread reluctance by the French media and investigators to label assaults as an "act of terrorism".

In an interview with L'Express magazine on September 26, 2017 , the French philosopher Élisabeth Badinter accused the media and politics of deliberately not reporting on the case fifteen days before the first round of the 2017 presidential election in France . They did not want a new "Affaire Paul Voise" like in the presidential election campaign in 2002 , where a brutal robbery on a pensioner the day before the first ballot had, according to general opinion, contributed to the fact that the candidate of the Front National , Jean-Marie Le Pen , surprisingly got more votes received as the socialist candidate Lionel Jospin . For the political left, anti-Zionism has become more important than the fight against Islamic anti-Semitism . Therefore, the Jewish victims of Islamist crimes - like the children executed by Mohamed Merah - would not have buried themselves in the collective consciousness. On October 19, 2017, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung took up the case and quoted in detail from the interview Élisabeth Badinter.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jürg Altwegg: The perpetrators do it like the Nazis . In: faz.net . October 19, 2017. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  2. ↑ Sarah Halimi, défenestrée par un de ses voisins dans le XIème à Paris ( fr ) In: Tribunejuive.info . April 5, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  3. ↑ Femme défenestrée à Paris: le voisin interpellé, interné en psychiatrie ( fr ) In: bfmtv.com . Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  4. ↑ Juliette Mickiewicz: Affaire Sarah Halimi: le suspect mis en examen pour meurtre ( fr ) In: lefigaro.fr . July 12, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  5. ↑ Alexandre Devecchio: Le meurtre de Sarah Halimi, une tragédie contemporaine ( fr ) In: lefigaro.fr . July 17, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  6. ↑ a b c Meurtre sauvage à Paris: démence ou antisémitisme? ( fr ) In: liberation.fr . Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h Sarah Halimi Was Beaten to Death in Paris By a Muslim Attacker Reciting Verses From the Quran. The Press Covered it Up. , Tablet Magazine. May 25, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2017. 
  8. ↑ Cette vieille dame assassinée qui panique la communauté juive et dont on parle peu ( fr ) In: slate.fr . April 7, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  9. ↑ a b c d e News Brief French intellectuals accuse authorities of covering up Jewish woman's slaying by Muslim neighbor , Jewish Telegraphic Agency . June 9, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2017. 
  10. ↑ Stéphane Kovacs: Sarah Halimi affair: ce que révèle le dossier ( fr ) In: lefigaro.fr . July 18, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  11. ↑ Meurtre de Sarah Halimi: ses proches dénoncent “l'inertie de la police” ( fr ) In: lexpress.fr . June 23, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  12. ↑ Jérémie Pham-Lê and Anna Benjamin: “Je l'ai jetée par la fenêtre”: les declarations du tueur présumé de Sarah Halimi ( fr ) In: lexpress.fr . July 13, 2017. Retrieved October 24, 2017.
  13. ^ Meurtre de Sarah Halimi: le caractère antisémite écarté . In: lalsace.fr . July 12, 2017. Retrieved October 24, 2017.
  14. ↑ Stéphane Kovacs: Sarah Halimi affair: le meurtrier sous l'empire d'une bouffée délirante ( fr ) In: lefigaro.fr . September 13, 2017. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
  15. ↑ Timothée Boutry: Meurtre de Sarah Halimi: "Un acte délirant et antisémite", selon l'expert psychiatre . In: leparisien.fr . September 14, 2017.
  16. ^ Meurtre de Sarah Halimi: le parquet demande que le caractère antisémite soit retenu . In: leparisien.fr . September 20, 2017. Retrieved October 24, 2017.
  17. ^ Philipp Peyman Engel: Funeral march for murdered Jewess . In: juedische-allgemeine.de . April 10, 2017. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
  18. ↑ a b James McAuley: In France, murder of a Jewish woman ignites debate over the word 'terrorism' . In: washingtonpost.com , July 23, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2017. 
  19. ↑ Man arrested after Jewish woman found dead outside her Paris flat Watchdog suggests possible hate motive , Jewish Chronicle. April 5, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2017. 
  20. ^ Hate motive 'possible' in alleged murder of Orthodox woman in Paris , Jewish Chronicle. April 7, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2017. 
  21. ^ Jewish woman found dead outside her Paris home Police arrest suspect in death of Sarah Halimi, 66; anti-Semitism watchdog doesn't rule out racially motivated murder . In: timesofisrael.com , April 5, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2017. 
  22. ↑ La presse française se penche sur l'affaire Sarah Halimi ( fr ) In: fr.timesofisrael.com . Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  23. ↑ Paris: marche en hommage à une femme juive défenestrée par un voisin ( fr ) In: bfmtv.com . Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  24. ^ Gilles William Goldnadel: "Ce que révèle l'indifférence vis-à-vis de la mort de Sarah Halimi" ( fr ) In: lefigaro.fr . May 22, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  25. ^ Adam Sage: Antisemitic killing 'hushed up for election campaigns' . In: thetimes.co.uk , May 23, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017. 
  26. ↑ Lettre ouverte à Gérard Collomb: d'Ilan à Sarah Halimi, la France indigne ( fr ) In: Atlantico.fr . May 25, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  27. ↑ Sarah Halimi: une députée Belge dénonce “le silence glaçant des autorités” ( fr ) In: i24news.tv . June 7, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  28. ↑ L'appel de 17 intellectuels: "Que la vérité soit dite sur le meurtre de Sarah Halimi" ( fr ) In: lefigaro.fr . June 1, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  29. ↑ De Manchester à Jénine ( fr ) In: laregledujeu.org . June 5, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  30. ↑ Michel Onfray: “Sarah Halimi a été tuée deux fois” ( fr ) In: lepoint.fr . June 8, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  31. ↑ Danny Leder: Did a Jewish woman become a murder victim “just by chance” in a social building in Paris? . In: haGalil . April 9, 2017. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
  32. ↑ Philipp Peyman Engel: Do you know Sarah Halimi? In France, an anti-Semitically motivated murder is presented as just some act of violence . In: juedische-allgemeine.de . June 22, 2017. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
  33. ↑ Louise Couvelaire: Sarah Halimi at-elle été tuée "parce qu'elle était juive? » ( Fr ) In: lemonde.fr . May 23, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  34. ↑ Martina Meister: Did Sarah Halimi have to die because she was Jewish? . In: Welt.de . July 1, 2017. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
  35. ↑ Macron veut que “toute la clarté” soit faite sur le meurtre de Sarah Halimi ( fr ) In: lexpress.fr . July 16, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  36. ↑ Commémoration de la rafle du Vel D'Hiv: "C'est bien la France qui organiza la rafle" Declare Emmanuel Macron ... . In: 20minutes.fr . July 16, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  37. ↑ Macron Denounces Anti-Zionism as 'Reinvented Form of Anti-Semitism' . In: nytimes.com , July 17, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2017. "[France President Macron] also called for an investigation into the death of Sarah Halimi, a 66-year-old woman who in April was thrown from the window of her Paris apartment " 
  38. ↑ Rudolf Balmer: President Macron demands clarity in the murder case Sarah Halimi . In: Taz.de . July 19, 2017. Retrieved October 23, 2017.
  39. ↑ Anne Rosencher: Antisémitisme: "Ne laissez pas les juifs mener ce combat seuls" ( fr ) In: lexpress.fr . September 26, 2017. Retrieved October 23, 2017.