EJP | News | France | Halimi’s mother blames police

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Halimi’s mother blames police

Updated: 22/Feb/2006 17:12

"They lynched him alive, they burnt him, they cut him simply because he was Jewish,” Ilan Halimi's mother told French Television.

Photo: EJP

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The mother of murdered French Jew Ilan Halimi has told French television that her son’s fate was “sealed in advance” and accused local police of mishandling the case.

Ilan Halimi was kidnapped and held for three weeks while his captors, led by a Muslim immigrant from Ivory Coast, demanded a ransom from his family. He was found naked and covered with cigarette burns near a suburban train station outside Paris on February 13. He died on his way to the hospital.

The police initially dismissed charges by Halima’s family and Jewish groups that anti-Semitism had contributed to the crime, even after one of the suspects told investigators last week that Halimi had been a target because he was Jewish.

“They lynched him alive, they burnt him, they cut him simply because he was Jewish,” Ruth Halimi said on French television.

She added that she believed police had not handled the affair correctly. She stressed that her ex- husband had received over 650 phone calls from the gang and the police was overwhelmed.

The grieving mother stressed that it was a mistake from the police to tell her not to pick up phone calls from the gang, days before her son was found agonizing. Earlier she accused police of downplaying a possible anti-Semitic motive to avoid alienating France’s five-million strong Muslim community.

Harsh punishment needed

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In the television interview, Ruth Halimi called for the government to make examples of those responsible.

"For such barbarity to exist in France in 2006 is impossible and cannot be accepted," she said.

French President Jacques Chirac telephoned Ilan’s parents on Tuesday.

He pledged "full light" would be shed on the case to determine if anti-Semitism was behind the crime, according to a presidential spokesman.

A march organized by the leading anti-racist organizations is scheduled for Sunday in Paris, in memory of Ilan Halimi.

The LICRA, International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, urged France’s President Jacques Chirac to lead the march just like his predecessor lead the 1990 march following the desecration of the Jewish cemetery of Carpentras, in southern France.

“It should not be a demonstration of Jews but rather a demonstration with the presence of all political parties, government ministers, maybe the prime minister and maybe the President,“ Cukierman said, calling for a “large mobilization.”

Meanwhile, two French investigators arrived in Ivory Coast to hunt the alleged leader of the gang that tortured and murdered Ilan Halimi.

Fofana, a 25-year-old petty criminal of Ivorian origin, who has been involved in violent robberies, styles himself - in English - as the "brain of barbarians.” He is believed to have fled to the West African country two days after Ilan was found.

Ten people have been placed under investigation over the murder, of whom six could could face aggravated charges of being motivated by religious hatred.

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