IN FRANCE, you can torture and murder a Jewish woman and go free with no trial…but only if you’re a Muslim
BY
As has become a troubling trend in the West related to some of the most horrific crimes against non-Muslims, claiming “mental issues” as an excuse has become the new ‘Get-Out-of-Jail-Free’ card for Muslim perpetrators. A French court recently ruled that Kobili Traoré (photo right), a Muslim, would not stand trial for brutally torturing and murdering his neighbor, Sarah Halimi, a 66-year-old Jewish woman, saying that Traoré had a “temporary abolition of discernment” from smoking marijuana.
Gatestone Institute April 4, 2017. Sarah Halimi, a 66-year-old Jewish woman, is thrown from her third-floor balcony or window. Her body lands in the building’s courtyard. Her murderer first had tortured her. Neighbors had heard screams and called the police. Nine officers came, but when they heard through the door a man shouting “Allahu Akbar”, they ran downstairs to wait for reinforcements.
When Kobili Traoré finally surrendered, he said, “I killed the sheitan” (Arabic for “Satan”). While torturing his victim, he said, he had recited verses from the Qur’an, and the Qur’an had “ordered him to kill a Jew”. He said he had spent the previous day in a nearby mosque. He was placed in a mental institution, where he told the psychiatrist who examined him that he smoked marijuana.
Sarah Halimi’s brother, William Attal, spoke in detail about what Halimi had suffered. The details of the autopsy report were excruciating:
“All the bones in her face had been broken, mandible, maxilla, frontal bone, nasal bones, and zygoma, some by a hard object, maybe a hammer, and her body had been punctured 22 times. He denounced the inaction of the police, the cowardice of the justices and the silence of the media. He reported facts which, until then, had not been revealed: one of the police officers who had gone to the crime scene had not come back downstairs with his colleagues. Even though he was armed, he had stayed behind the door. He had not moved. He had just listened to the murderer shouting “Allahu Akbar” and the victim screaming in pain.”
In an article published by Haaretz, Shirli Sitbon wrote:
“In France, perpetrators of anti-Semitic attacks claim insanity to elude justice. The mental illness defense has become more prevalent when it comes to hate crimes in France. And it seems to be working.”
She went on to say, citing precedents, that a sinister series of events had begun with the murder of Sebastien Sellam in 2003. Although the murderer, Adel Amastaibou, had told the police “If he’s dead, I’m so happy, that f ***ing Jew, that dirty Jew,” Sellam was declared not responsible due to “mental problems.”
The murder was not mentioned in the newspapers. A French Jewish organizations spoke of a “distressing anti-Semitic crime” and organized a silent demonstration in front of Halimi’s building. It was only then that a few articles were written. The French presidential election was about to take place, and journalists from the mainstream media apparently did not want to speak about an anti-Semitic murder committed by a Muslim.
The judge assigned to the case, Anne Ihuellou, at first refused to acknowledge that the murder had been a hate crime. It took the Halimi family’s lawyers more than six months to get her finally to concede, on February 27, 2018, that the motive for the murder had in fact been anti-Semitic.
The judge also refused to organize a review of the events of the case, and agreed to question Traoré only briefly. She called in a psychiatric expert, Daniel Zagury, who said that at the time of the act, the murderer had been in a state of “acute delirium” due to the consumption of cannabis, but fully “accessible to a penal sanction.” Seemingly dissatisfied with Dr. Zagury’s conclusions, Judge Ihuellou asked for two more opinions by experts — both of whom, contradicting Dr. Zagury’s conclusions, said that the Traoré was unfit to stand trial.
On July 12, 2019, the judge dismissed Dr. Zagury’s report, declared that there are “plausible reasons for concluding that the murderer is not criminally responsible” and stated that the attack had not been anti-Semitic.
Realizing that Traoré could soon be released without trial, the Halimi family’s lawyers requested that the case immediately be transferred to a court of appeals.
That court, issuing its decision on December 19, declared that Kobili Traoré had “voluntarily killed” Sarah Halimi and had thereby committed a murder. The court also acknowledged the “aggravating circumstance of anti-Semitism,” but added that due to a “temporary abolition of discernment,” the murderer was “criminally irresponsible,” could not be tried, and therefore had to be released.
The president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), Francis Kalifat, remarked
“an anti-Semitic murder could become the only murder excused by the courts on the basis of the use of drugs, while in all other cases, drugs are an aggravating factor.”
A lawyer for the Halimi family, Francis Szpiner, said
“a ‘Sarah Halimi jurisprudence’ has been created: “anyone who suffers from a delusional puff because of the use of illicit and dangerous substances will be exempt from criminal responsibility.”
Another lawyer for the victim’s family, Gilles-William Goldnadel, expressed his “disgust,” and said:
“if the victim were not Jewish and if the murderer were not a Muslim, the decision could have been different.”
A member of parliament, Meyer Habib, commented
“the court’s decision was a “judicial scandal never seen in France” and added that there is “an obvious desire on the part of the French judiciary system to exonerate an anti-Semitic Islamic murderer.”
A psychiatrist, Claude Bloch, noted
“the ruling may “allow anyone with fierce hatred for Jews to murder them with impunity.”
The eminent historian, Georges Bensoussan, said in an interview with Le Figaro:
“… the French judicial system chose to avoid a trial so that no one will talk about an immigration which is not well integrated, and, in certain cases today, is undergoing the effect of a process of Islamization.”
On January 5, French Jewish organizations organized a protest to demand that the judiciary reverse its decision. All the French political organizations remained silent; none joined the protest. The mainstream media observed virtually a total silence on the subject. Only Jews came to the demonstration.
84% of young French Jews are have been victims of anti-Semitism at least once
