The suspected gang leader wanted for the kidnap, torture and murder of a young Jewish man in Paris arrived back in France Saturday after being handed over by Ivory Coast authorities.

He was immediately charged with murder by an investigating magistrate. 

Youssouf Fofana, 25, had earlier been delivered into French custody for extradition after failing to convince an Abidjan court that he had Ivorian citizenship through his parents.

Dozens of policemen, accompanied by Ivorian Justice Minister Mamadou Kone and French diplomats, escorted the handcuffed suspect onto the tarmac at Abidjan airport, where two officers took him aboard a French Airbus 310 military plane.

Youssouf Fofana escorted by Ivoirian policemen at Abidjan's airport.   AFP Copyright 2006

"Our political leadership wanted the extradition to take place as quickly as possible," Kone said.

The plane immediately left for Paris, with about 100 French soldiers
returning from their peacekeeping mission in the former French colony also on board.

When he arrived back at Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris at about 5:30 pm (1630GMT) he was met by some 30 motorcycle policemen and a convoy of unmarked police cars waiting at the foot of the aircraft’s steps.

Police carrying shields entered the aircraft and Fofana emerged wearing a black and grey coat and a bullet-proof vest. He was driven away in a police car escorted by the motorcycle policemen and an armoured vehicle.

He was due to be taken to one or both of the two investigating magistrates overseeing the cases for notification of the charges he faces.

Fofana fled France for the west African state on February 15, two days after Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old cellphone vendor, was found dying near a suburban railway track.

Fofana, a convicted petty criminal, has reportedly confessed to kidnapping Halimi but not to his murder, and has denied that the crime was motivated by anti-Semitism.

The victim was naked, bound and gagged, and had managed to crawl to the railtracks in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois after being dumped nearby. He died en route to the hospital.

Horrific death shocked France

Halimi’s horrific death -- following three weeks of captivity and drawn-out torture that left marks over four-fifths of his body -- shocked the French with its brutality and unsettled the Jewish community, which staged a massive march against hate crimes last weekend.

After initial reluctance, French authorities have said they believe
anti-Semitism was part of the gang’s motives.

A massive manhunt for Fofana led to a swoop in Abidjan, where he was arrested in a working-class neighborhood on February 22.

Fofana’s gang apparently used young women as bait to lure their victims, and are suspected of being behind two other extortion rackets that involved threatening doctors, businessmen and minor celebrities.

During police questioning the allegedly self-styled "brain of the
barbarians" is reported to have said the gang had targeted Halimi because they presumed Jews were wealthy.

In a television interview conducted in an Ivorian prison, Fofana repeated that Halimi’s kidnapping was carried out "for financial reasons".

So far 21 people, including the young woman believed to have served as Halimi’s bait, are under judicial investigation, and most have been ordered held before any charges are filed.

Meanwhile, a lawyer hired by Fofana’s mother to oversee his defence said Saturday he was refusing the case.

"I don’t want to have anything to do with this affair anymore," Norbert Goutmann said in a statement to Agence France Presse.

He said he had been "shaken" by the multitude of phone calls he had received about Fofana’s involvement in Halimi’s murder, "including some that were very aggressive".