POUR ETRE VRAIMENT AU COURANT DE CE QUI SE PASSE EN FRANCE....
.........ON EST OBLIGE DE LIRE
LE "GUARDIAN" !
Trial opens into alleged gang kidnap, torture and murder of French Jew
• Soul-searching in France over harrowing anti-semitic killing• Gang known as Barbarians allegedly tortured victim for three weeks
Angelique Chrisafis
in Paris
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 29 April 2009 16.53 BST
French Jews shout outside the Paris court 29 April 2009 before the trial of Youssouf Fofana, 28-year-old alleged leader of a gang known as the Barbarians. Photograph: Remy de la Mauviniere/AP
France was forced to confront the moral decay of its deprived housing estates as the trial opened today one of the decade's most harrowing murder cases: the kidnap and torturing to death of a Jewish mobile phone salesman by a gang said to believe Jews were "loaded" and would club together to pay a ransom.
Ilan Halimi, 23, was found naked with his head shaved, in handcuffs and covered with burn marks and stab wounds near rail tracks outside Paris in February 2006. In a state of shock and unable to speak, he died en route to hospital. He had been held, tortured and beaten for three weeks, his head wrapped in tape, eyes Sellotaped shut and fed through a straw, while a gang known as the Barbarians demanded a ransom from his family.
Police initially did not treat the case as a hate crime. But within days of Halimi's death his family said he was targeted because he was Jewish. France, still coming to terms with its anti-semitic collaboration of the second world war, was plunged into a wave of soul-searching. Tens of thousands of people marched against anti-semitism.
The leader of the Barbarians gang, Youssouf Fofana, 28, a French school dropout turned petty criminal, has appeared in court accused of kidnapping, torture and assassination, with anti-semitism as an aggravating circumstance. Facing life imprisonment, he admits masterminding the kidnap but denies murder. A deliberately provocative character who has bombarded officials and lawyers with insults, he arrived in court shouting "Allah will be victorious". Of the 26 other defendants, 15 are accused of taking part in the plot. Others are accused of adhering to a law of silence and not going to the police.
Halimi lived with his mother in eastern Paris and worked in a mobile phone shop in the city.
Fofana, a charismatic gang leader on a housing estate outside western Paris, had already tried and failed to kidnap people for cash when he spotted Halimi as a target. He asked a female friend to find "a girl who attracts boys" who could ensnare Halimi into a honey-trap. The girl persuaded a pretty 17-year-old she knew from her former children's home to take part. The girl met Halimi in the shop and after a few days he accepted to go for a Coke. He accompanied her to what he thought was her home, where he was knocked out with ether and taken to an empty flat on the gang's estate in Bagneux, west of Paris. A caretaker had given gang members keys to an empty flat.
Halimi was initially guarded by four teenagers who were promised €5,000. He was bound and beaten with broom handles. A ransom demand was immediately made for €450,000 from his family. Some of the accused told police that Fofana felt Jews were "loaded" with cash and their community always showed "solidarity" so would club together and pay up.
The gang made numerous calls to Halimi's family, leaving a trail of videos and tapes dotted around Paris. A local rabbi was directed to a Paris letterbox where he found an cassette of a sobbing Halimi detailing his torture. A cousin was directed to a drycleaner where he found a video of Halimi, bound, weak and draped in a dressing gown.
During Halimi's 24-day captivity, Fofana made two short return trips to his parents' native Ivory Coast, hoping to receive the ransom by money transfer.
After 10 days he carried Halimi to a windowless, unheated basement cellar where the torture worsened, he was burned with cigarettes and slashed with knives. Halimi's father refused to go to Brussels to hand over ransom cash and several days later Halimi was dumped. Before leaving him to die by rail tracks, Fofana is accused of stabbing him, dousing his body with alcohol and setting him on fire.
Halimi's sister, Anne-Laure, told Le Parisien: "They attacked Ilan because they thought the Jewish community was rich. That was their explanation in 2006, after the events. It's not acceptable. It's not possible that there are still these types of crimes, acts this disgusting because someone belongs to a particular religion."
All the defendants are French, but many, like Fofana, had immigrant parents. The paper Liberation said the case laid bare a housing estate underclass of young people desensitised by daily racism, poverty and despair. Halimi's mother, who has written a book accusing the police of botching their investigation, has said she was sickened by the thought that people might have known what was happening but said nothing.
The trial is being held behind closed doors in a juvenile court, because two of the accused were under 18 at the time. It is expected to last 10 weeks.
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Trial opens into alleged gang kidnap, torture and murder of French Jew
• Soul-searching in France over harrowing anti-semitic killing• Gang known as Barbarians allegedly tortured victim for three weeks
Angelique Chrisafis
in Paris
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 29 April 2009 16.53 BST
French Jews shout outside the Paris court 29 April 2009 before the trial of Youssouf Fofana, 28-year-old alleged leader of a gang known as the Barbarians. Photograph: Remy de la Mauviniere/AP
France was forced to confront the moral decay of its deprived housing estates as the trial opened today one of the decade's most harrowing murder cases: the kidnap and torturing to death of a Jewish mobile phone salesman by a gang said to believe Jews were "loaded" and would club together to pay a ransom.
Ilan Halimi, 23, was found naked with his head shaved, in handcuffs and covered with burn marks and stab wounds near rail tracks outside Paris in February 2006. In a state of shock and unable to speak, he died en route to hospital. He had been held, tortured and beaten for three weeks, his head wrapped in tape, eyes Sellotaped shut and fed through a straw, while a gang known as the Barbarians demanded a ransom from his family.
Police initially did not treat the case as a hate crime. But within days of Halimi's death his family said he was targeted because he was Jewish. France, still coming to terms with its anti-semitic collaboration of the second world war, was plunged into a wave of soul-searching. Tens of thousands of people marched against anti-semitism.
The leader of the Barbarians gang, Youssouf Fofana, 28, a French school dropout turned petty criminal, has appeared in court accused of kidnapping, torture and assassination, with anti-semitism as an aggravating circumstance. Facing life imprisonment, he admits masterminding the kidnap but denies murder. A deliberately provocative character who has bombarded officials and lawyers with insults, he arrived in court shouting "Allah will be victorious". Of the 26 other defendants, 15 are accused of taking part in the plot. Others are accused of adhering to a law of silence and not going to the police.
Halimi lived with his mother in eastern Paris and worked in a mobile phone shop in the city.
Fofana, a charismatic gang leader on a housing estate outside western Paris, had already tried and failed to kidnap people for cash when he spotted Halimi as a target. He asked a female friend to find "a girl who attracts boys" who could ensnare Halimi into a honey-trap. The girl persuaded a pretty 17-year-old she knew from her former children's home to take part. The girl met Halimi in the shop and after a few days he accepted to go for a Coke. He accompanied her to what he thought was her home, where he was knocked out with ether and taken to an empty flat on the gang's estate in Bagneux, west of Paris. A caretaker had given gang members keys to an empty flat.
Halimi was initially guarded by four teenagers who were promised €5,000. He was bound and beaten with broom handles. A ransom demand was immediately made for €450,000 from his family. Some of the accused told police that Fofana felt Jews were "loaded" with cash and their community always showed "solidarity" so would club together and pay up.
The gang made numerous calls to Halimi's family, leaving a trail of videos and tapes dotted around Paris. A local rabbi was directed to a Paris letterbox where he found an cassette of a sobbing Halimi detailing his torture. A cousin was directed to a drycleaner where he found a video of Halimi, bound, weak and draped in a dressing gown.
During Halimi's 24-day captivity, Fofana made two short return trips to his parents' native Ivory Coast, hoping to receive the ransom by money transfer.
After 10 days he carried Halimi to a windowless, unheated basement cellar where the torture worsened, he was burned with cigarettes and slashed with knives. Halimi's father refused to go to Brussels to hand over ransom cash and several days later Halimi was dumped. Before leaving him to die by rail tracks, Fofana is accused of stabbing him, dousing his body with alcohol and setting him on fire.
Halimi's sister, Anne-Laure, told Le Parisien: "They attacked Ilan because they thought the Jewish community was rich. That was their explanation in 2006, after the events. It's not acceptable. It's not possible that there are still these types of crimes, acts this disgusting because someone belongs to a particular religion."
All the defendants are French, but many, like Fofana, had immigrant parents. The paper Liberation said the case laid bare a housing estate underclass of young people desensitised by daily racism, poverty and despair. Halimi's mother, who has written a book accusing the police of botching their investigation, has said she was sickened by the thought that people might have known what was happening but said nothing.
The trial is being held behind closed doors in a juvenile court, because two of the accused were under 18 at the time. It is expected to last 10 weeks.
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MUSLIM BARBARIAN SCREAMS “ALLAH WILL CONQUER” AS TRIAL BEGINS IN BRUTAL TORTURE/MURDER OF FRENCH JEW
Ilan Halimi's horrific Muslim murderers go on trial in France.
I covered this act of depraved Islamic Jew hatred here, scroll:
I covered this act of depraved Islamic Jew hatred here, scroll:
Halimi's homemade concentration camp and the inconceivable horrors that were suffered by this French Jew who was chosen by Islam's soldiers for unimaginable torture, was blacked out by the corrupt media aligned with jihad force..
They covered up the religious aspects of this depraved barbarity.
Law enforcement did as wwell.
The reliable witness who broke the true story back in February 2006 and took it to the world was Nidra Poller. It was how I met her.
Ilan Halimi's Muslim torturers/murderers phoned the family on several occasions during the period Ilan was held hostage and made them listen to the recitation of verses from the Koran, while Ilan’s tortured screams could be heard in the background.
23 people participated in torturing Ilan.
Another 20 were involved indirectly.
The custodian of the building gave them the key to an apartment where they said they wanted to "keep someone."
Three weeks of unimaginable torture.
Three weeks. So many clues. So many guilty animals partaking in the continuing torture in their "homemade concentration camp."
The screams must have been loud because the torture was especially atrocious: the thugs cut bits off the flesh of the young man, they cut his fingers and ears, they burned him with acid, and in the end poured flammable liquid on him and set him on fire.
Horrible tortures. Horrible torturers.
One of the torturers would go to work at a TV station everyday and come back and partake in the torture. The girls who lured young men.
They knew he had been kidnapped.
They knew Yosef (the leader of the Barbarians) was extremely violent.
They knew Ilan was still in his hands three weeks later.
All they had to do was make an anonymous phone call to the police. No one would have known. They did not do it. No neighbor thought to say to the police that something strange was going on in this building.
The police told the family not to say a word.
The Jewish community was not warned when prior attempts to kidnap Jewish men had failed. The Jewish community was not warned before the successful attempt.
Even one member of the gang that dropped out of the gang because he was shocked by their violence did not call the police.
These neighborhoods are not ghettos. They are not sordid. Not squalid.
When Ilan was found, the head of the fire department who was called to the scene, this man with decades of experience, almost fainted when he saw him.
The last thing Youssef Fofana (leader of the murdering gang, the barbarians) did was to slit his throat twice and pour an inflammable liquid on him and to set it on fire.
But this did not burn him to death, because Ilan walked for perhaps one hour, trying still to find a way to live.
Times Online
A self-proclaimed Muslim barbarian shouted his contempt for his judges yesterday at the start of his trial for the torture and murder of a young Jewish man.
Youssouf Fofana, 28, who led a loose-knit gang of youths from an immigrant housing estate, swaggered into court and shouted “Allah will conquer” as the court began hearing a case into a killing that horrified France and the world Jewish community in 2006.
Mr Fofana and most of his 26 alleged accomplices have admitted their roles in the kidnapping of Ilan Halimi, 23, an assistant in a Paris telephone shop, who was held for ransom for 24 days in the suburb of Bagneux.
Mr Fofana, whose parents came to France from Ivory Coast, denies killing the victim, who was tied up in a cellar and tortured with acid, cigarettes and knives. He died in an ambulance after Mr Fofana dumped him by a railway line and allegedly set him alight.
The crime symbolised the casual and violent anti-Semitic culture among the young on the immigrant estates.
It shocked France because many residents, including parents of gang members, were alleged to have been aware that Mr Halimi was being held. Some allegedly took turns in guarding the captive for a few euros. Half the defendants, mainly teenagers at the time, face charges of failing to render assistance or alert police.
The racially charged trial proceeded in camera because two of the accused were minors in 2006, including Emma, 19, of Iranian background, who is alleged to have lured Mr Halimi to his doom by visiting his shop and inviting him on a romantic date.
Ruth Halimi, the victim's mother, has accused the police of bungling the inquiry. She initially attacked the Government, including Nicolas Sarkozy, then the Interior Minister, for playing down its anti-Semitic aspect.
Ruth Halimi, the victim's mother, has accused the police of bungling the inquiry. She initially attacked the Government, including Nicolas Sarkozy, then the Interior Minister, for playing down its anti-Semitic aspect.
After thousands demonstrated, Mr Sarkozy promised Jewish leaders that everything would be done to bring all those involved to justice.
Mr Fofana faces life imprisonment if convicted of kidnapping, torture and murder, aggravated by anti-Semitic motives, a specific charge in French law.
He should be tortured for three weeks and executed as Halimi was.
Anything less is a gross injustice.
Mrs Halimi sat apparently praying in court as Mr Fofana, bearded and in a white tracksuit, grinned at her and jokingly told the judges that his name was “Arabs African revolt barbarian Salafist army”.
Salafism is a fundamentalist movement espoused by many young immigrant radicals.
Mrs Halimi has been waging a campaign to keep the spotlight on the anti-Semitic motives behind the crime.
Mr Fofana's accomplices are alleged to have said that he picked the victim because he was Jewish and “Jews have money and they stick together”.
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