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Youssouf Fofana, suspected head of the "Gang of Barbarians"
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Youssef Fofana, suspected head of the Paris "gang of arbarians" was arrested Thursday overnight in Abidjan and has confessed to the kidnap, torture and murder of a Ilan Halimi, a young French Jewish man, in a case that has horrified France.
Fofana could be extradited back to France by the end of the day, according to French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.
Fofana was picked up by the judiciary police in the working-class district of Abobo in the northeast of Ivory Coast’s economic capital, the source said.
The 25-year-old convicted petty criminal is of Ivorian origin. He styles himself -- in English -- as the "brain of barbarians" and is believed to have fled to the west African country last week.
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Senegalese men in Abidjan look at newspapers announcing the arrest of Youssef Fofana.
Photo: AFP Copyright 2006 |
Early Thursday he was in the hands of two French police detectives who arrived here on Tuesday.
French President Jacques Chirac was to attend a Jewish memorial ceremony Thursday for Ilan Halimi, the 23-year-old telephone salesman who was kidnapped and murdered in what French authorities now say was a crime motivated in part by anti-Semitism.
In a sign of the affair’s growing emotional impact, Chirac’s office said he would attend an evening service led by Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk at the main Paris synagogue of rue de la Victoire. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has also said he will be present.
Meanwhile several anti-racist groups joined a call from the French Council of Jewish Institutions (CRIF) for a silent march through central Paris on Sunday to condemn Halimi’s killing. Chirac’s ruling UMP party and the opposition Socialists both said they would send delgations.
"The act inspires a feeling of sheer horror. The kidnapping’s original
motivation may have been sordid criminality, but to this was added
anti-Semitic prejudice," said the League for Human Rights (LIDH).
Halimi went missing in late January after being apparently lured into a
sex-trap. He was held and tortured for three weeks in a poor multi-ethnic suburban Paris apartment estate by a gang that sent ransom demands to his family. He died shortly after being dumped by a railway line on February 13.
A total of 13 people have been placed under judicial investigation in the case, of whom six could face aggravated charges of being motivated by religious hatred. Several others were still being questioned, including the concierge of the apartment building where Halimi was held.
