The  grisly anti-Semitic crime in a suburb of Paris a year ago shocked France and its 600,000-strong Jewish community.

"Pourquoi (why)?," asked France’s Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk, his voice cracking with emotion.

"Herzl was right," said Zeev Boim, Israel’s Minister of Immigrant Absorption.

"J'accuse"

"It’s time again for someone to say ’J’accuse’," said Malcolm Honlein, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations, continuing the theme of the Dreyfus Affair at the end of the 19th century which brought Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl to establish the first Zionist Congress in 1897 after witnessing the court martial of the French Jewish army captain on trumped-up charges of treason.

Other speakers included Rishon LeZion Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, French Ambassador to Israel Jean-Michel Casa and the President of the European Jewish Congress, Pierre Besnainou.

Halimi was reburied in a new section of Jerusalem’s main cemetery reserved for French Jews.

Accompanying his remains were his mother, Ruth Halimi, his two sisters Yael and Anne-Laure and other family members.

Ruth Halimi, mother of slain Ilan Halimi, is comforted by a relative during the reburial ceremony at the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem. AFP Copyright 2007

David Roche, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel’s delegation in France, brought the family on an El Al flight from Paris.

Several hundreds of Israelis of French origin attended the funeral.

"As leaders in the struggle against anti-Semitism around the world, we felt committed to extend this Jewish act of kindness, not only to do justice to Ilan and his family, but also as an expression of the commitment never to tire in our struggle against anti-Semitism, to raise our voices in every international forum, to eradicate the manifestations of hatred and racism seen today," said Zeev Bielski, chairman of the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency- which brings Jews to immigrate to Israel.

A Sefer Torah  (Torah Scroll), offered by the French Jewish community, will be brought Sunday to the Western Wall and in another memorial, a forest will be planted in Halimi's name in Israel.

One year ago

Halimi went missing in Paris in January 2006.

After being lured by a young woman from the mobile phone shop where he worked, he was held captive for more than three weeks.

Authorities found him naked, handcuffed and covered with burn marks from cigarettes near railroad tracks south of Paris on February 13, 2006.

He died on the way to the hospital, having bled to death from stab wounds to his neck.

Halimi’s abductors had tortured him while demanding ransom from his family and the Jewish community.

The murder shocked France. President Jacques Chirac visited the Great Synagogue in Paris to express "his outrage and that of France”.

On 26 February 2006, tens of thousands of people protesting racism and anti-Semitism held marches in France in memory of Ilan Halimi.

Up to 200,000 people walked through Paris from Place de la Repblique to Nation, past the shop on Boulevard Voltaire where the 23-year-old murdered man worked.