French "Youths" Kill Jewish Man After 24 Days of Torture

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - French "Youths" Kill Jewish Man After 24 Days of Torture

Posted: 2/27/2006 12:12:01 PM EDT

WSJ article; the phrench need to "reach out" to these disaffected young people. dontcha think? (with a .308)

The Murder of Ilan Halimi
Filed under: Front Page, Jew, News, Arabs, EU, antisemitism
By NIDRA POLLER, The Wall Street Journal

PARIS — Last week, a 23-year-old man initially identified as “Ilan” was found by a passerby stumbling in a field near the railroad tracks in the Essonne region south of Paris. Handcuffed, naked, with four-fifths of his body covered with bruises, stab wounds and serious burns, Ilan died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

Soon after, police provided more details. The victim had been kidnapped Jan. 20 and held for 24 days by a gang from the banlieues, the poor suburban projects that ring the French capital, who eluded capture while repeatedly contacting Ilan’s family with ransom demands. The police suspect the group was involved in other kidnapping attempts in the last two months that used young women as bait. Several of the targeted men worked, as Ilan did, in the small cell phone shops along Boulevard Voltaire in the mixed 11th arrondissement of Paris. In another case, a suspicious father replaced his son for a meeting with a girl who claimed to be a singer, and fell into the hands of masked men who tried to capture him but ran away when someone called the police.

Throughout Ilan’s disappearance, the police handled his case as a straightforward kidnap for ransom. The discovery of his body, bearing signs of barbaric torture over an extended period of time, raised serious doubts about this hypothesis. Later, a policeman admitted to the press that he and his colleagues were baffled by the gang’s erratic behavior. Ransom demands went up to €400,000, dropped to €100,000 one day, €5,000 another. The kidnappers called off several pickup arrangements, acting like amateurs, but were highly sophisticated in using untraceable emails and cell phones.

Yet one detail was consistently played down by the investigators and missing from the early media reporting on the killing. The victim, whose full name is Ilan Halimi, was Jewish. Most of the men targeted in other kidnapping attempts were Jewish. Most members of the gang who allegedly carried out the crime are Muslims, whose families come from the Maghreb or sub-Saharan Africa and live in the very sort of neighborhoods that went up in flames during three weeks of nationwide rioting last fall.

Jewish community leaders like Roger Cukierman, president of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France, an umbrella group for the country’s 600,000 Jews, cautioned against hasty conclusions and unreasonable panic. But French Jews have become sensitive to a well-documented rise in violent Muslim anti-Semitism over the past five years and saw anti-Semitism as the missing link in this senseless crime. After all, Ilan’s family is simple and modest. Ruth Halimi, who is divorced from Ilan’s father, works as a receptionist. Why else, people are asking, would Ilan be tortured so cruelly for so long? No other motive, aside from sheer hatred, is apparent.

After Ilan was found on Feb. 13, the pieces started to fall into place quickly. When the police put out a sketch of a blond woman who had tried to bait other young men in similar circumstances as Ilan Halimi’s, Audrey Lorleach turned herself in. She led police to a housing project in Bagneux, a suburb in Hauts-de-Seine. Fifteen suspects in the Halimi murder, who call their gang the “Barbarians,” were brought into custody. Youssouf Fofana, who refers to himself (in English) as the “Brain of the Barbarians,” is the apparent ringleader. He is on the run and, investigators suspect, hiding in northern Ivory Coast, the birthplace of his parents. The girl who entrapped Ilan Halimi, who was also on the run, may be among the three people arrested in Aix-en-Provence Tuesday.

Ilan was held prisoner and abused in an apartment and later a utility room in the cellar in one of the project buildings. Both were lent to the gang by the concierge, who is also now in custody. Some in the gang were known delinquents. Mr. Fofana, who is 26, had served time for armed robbery. But another member was in on-the-job training in the IT service of a French TV station.

In initial statements to the press, Public Prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin and various police officials stuck to their hypothesis that money was the motive for the crime, not anti-Semitism. They noted that Ilan Halimi had been tortured as if the gang were following “a known scenario.” Photos of Ilan, naked, with a sack on his head and a gun pointed at his temple were emailed to family members suggesting, according to the police, “scenes of torture at Abu Ghraib.” As it turns out, the beheading of Daniel Pearl or Iraqi snuff films are the better comparison. An anonymous police detective quoted in Monday’s edition of Libération said: “It’s simply that, for those criminals, Jew equals money.”

Later that same day, investigating magistrate Corinne Goetzmann detained seven of the suspects on charges of kidnapping, sequestration, torture, acts of barbarism and premeditated murder in an organized gang. They will also be charged with targeting the victim on the basis of his religion, French for hate crime, which carries a stiffer penalty. Justice Minister Pascal Clément explained that the charge of anti-Semitism was based on the fact that one of the suspects had declared to the judge that they picked a Jew because Jews are supposed to be rich. But, according to reports in the French press, some of the suspects in police custody said that they tortured Ilan with particular cruelty simply because he was Jewish.

No longer able to deny or play down the racial motive, the investigation is entering a new phase. One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is the probable involvement of relatives and neighbors, beyond the immediate circle of the gang, who were told about the Jewish hostage and dropped in to participate in the torture.

Ilan’s uncle Rafi Halimi told reporters that the gang phoned the family on several occasions and made them listen to the recitation of verses from the Quran, while Ilan’s tortured screams could be heard in the background. The family has publicly criticized the police for deliberately ignoring the explicit anti-Semitic motives, which were repeatedly expressed and should have dictated an entirely different approach to the case from the start. Police searches have now revealed the presence of Islamist literature in the home of at least one of the gang members.
* * *
The highest echelons of the French government are now preoccupied with the murder of Ilan Halimi. Paris is well aware that the case threatens France’s international reputation, but far more than that is at stake. Once again, as in the suburban riots of 2005, the country is forced to come face to face with the criminalized, alienated and racist Muslim youth and their adult enablers in its midst.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin declared, in a long speech delivered at the annual dinner of the CRIF, that this heinous crime was anti-Semitic, and that anti-Semitism is not acceptable in France. He promised that the perpetrators would be captured and punished. Two French policemen were sent to the Ivory Coast with an international warrant to arrest Mr. Fofana who flew there on a one-way ticket on Feb. 15, the day that his photo appeared in Le Figaro. A delegation of the CRIF and members of the Halimi family on Tuesday met with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

The murder of Ilan Halimi invites comparison with the November 2003 killing of a Jewish disc jockey, Sébastien Selam. His Muslim neighbor, Adel, slit his throat, nearly decapitating him, and gouged out his eyes with a carving fork in his building’s underground parking garage. Adel came upstairs with bloodied hands and told his mother, “I killed my Jew, I will go to paradise.” In the two years before his murder, the Selam family was repeatedly harassed for being Jewish. The Selam case has not been opened by the magistrate. The murderer, who admits his guilt, was placed in a psychiatric hospital, and may be released soon.

The initial response to the kidnapping of Ilan Halimi suggested a comparably selective ignorance. But many things have changed in French society in the past two years. Then, faced with the new tide of anti-Semitism, the Jewish community was left alone with its distress and at times even accused of being justifiably targeted because of its support for Israel. Today the government has apparently decided that the barbarous hatred unleashed against one Jewish man is a threat to all of France.

Ms. Poller is an American novelist living in Paris since 1972.
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114064452021880485.html

Posted: 2/27/2006 12:15:54 PM EDT

[#1]

No no no. You're forgetting that it is a religion of peace. Please re-word your headline to say "French "Youths" Peacefully Kill Jewish Man After 24 Days of Peaceful Torture."

Posted: 2/27/2006 12:17:06 PM EDT

[#2]

Why did this not make any front pages here?

Posted: 2/27/2006 12:17:32 PM EDT

[#3]

The French aren't turning in the Jews to the ~~Gestapo~~ muzzies. Yet. Keep alert for any hint of outrage.

Posted: 2/27/2006 12:19:40 PM EDT

[#4]

Quoted:
Why did this not make any front pages here?

there was a tiny blurb in the boston globe

Fucking Sand people

public castration is my solution

Posted: 2/27/2006 12:20:23 PM EDT

[#5]

The french, just when you thought you've seen it all.

Posted: 2/27/2006 12:29:45 PM EDT

[#6]

Quoted:
The french, just when you thought you've seen it all.

These were not indigenous French, just "students"

Posted: 2/27/2006 12:34:04 PM EDT

[#7]

You don't see any Pastafarians doing this.

Posted: 2/27/2006 12:45:25 PM EDT

[#8]

The murderer, who admits his guilt, was placed in a psychiatric hospital, and may be released soon.

Posted: 2/27/2006 1:07:18 PM EDT

[#9]

The French sure do have a knack for collaboration, don't they?

Posted: 2/27/2006 1:09:36 PM EDT

[#10]

Originally posted by thedoctors308
The French sure do have a knack for collaboration, don't they?

It would appear to be their national pastime...

Posted: 2/27/2006 1:17:01 PM EDT

[#11]

OK,
how many pages before lock down.....

Posted: 2/27/2006 1:20:03 PM EDT

[#12]

See, if some of those peaceful guys kidnapped one of my family, I'd do likewise.
And while they made me hear one of mine scream in pain, I'd make them listen to an entire congregation scream in pain.

Eye for an eye my ass. This is 100 for 1 if you fuck with me and mine.

Posted: 2/27/2006 1:24:43 PM EDT

[#13]

I can tell you this. If that was my son that they did that too, there would retaliation in the extreme. I think I can say that for a lot us here.

Posted: 2/27/2006 1:29:30 PM EDT

[#14]

Quoted:
You don't see any Pastafarians doing this.

rAmen

Posted: 2/27/2006 1:55:45 PM EDT

[#15]

Islam is peace.

Posted: 2/27/2006 1:58:41 PM EDT

[#16]

speechless.

Posted: 2/27/2006 2:02:38 PM EDT

[#17]

Kill them all, let Allah sort them out

Posted: 2/27/2006 2:09:51 PM EDT

[#18]

Hey,
Those immigrants are just torturing jews that the French don't want to torture themselves.

Why there is a single jew left in europe I will never know.

Posted: 2/27/2006 2:12:54 PM EDT

[#19]

The Religion of Peace®...

We know this to be true, they keep telling us...

Posted: 2/27/2006 2:20:15 PM EDT

[#20]

<<Response pre-edited for moderator/staff convenience.>>

Posted: 2/27/2006 2:21:18 PM EDT

[#21]

I really don't know what to say anymore. How much more disgusting shit must normal human beings endure before we realize that there is a war going on and we are all smack dab in the crosshairs. Worse yet, they are in the wires - infiltrated to the hilt.

But our own sense of civilty and fair play will never allow for what must inevitably happen. Hopefully, it won't be too late when that epiphany comes...

Posted: 2/27/2006 2:24:32 PM EDT

[#22]

Who cares?

The perpetrators were French (not to be criticized) and the victim was Jewish (and as such, deserves what he got since Jews support the US in the WOT).

Posted: 2/27/2006 2:27:21 PM EDT

[#23]

Quoted:
<<Response pre-edited for moderator/staff convenience.>>

+1

Posted: 2/27/2006 2:28:29 PM EDT

[#24]

I'm amazed...

...that this isn't the headline of every western news network....
...that some people still believe that it's a "religion of peace"...
...that the world hasn't properly punished these people for all these crimes.....

Posted: 2/27/2006 2:29:59 PM EDT

[#25]

Man i would love to say a few words about this......

Posted: 2/27/2006 5:38:18 PM EDT

[#26]

Quoted:
<<Response pre-edited for moderator/staff convenience.>>

Very good..... It will save them time.....

Posted: 2/27/2006 5:47:45 PM EDT

[#27]

don't get me started on this. they only now admitted this was an anti-semtic arab on jew killing unrelated to money. I tell every European Jew I know that Europe made it clear that we're not welcome 50 years ago. Now that the Mouhammedeans (my new favorite appelation) are a significant minority, they are folding over and over again. They'd be MORE than happy to sacrifice their jewish communities to the mouhammedeans to save their own asses.

Posted: 2/27/2006 5:55:25 PM EDT

[#28]

Maybe the ROP was upset about cartoons or something.

I wish the French would just surrender already...so we can storm the Normany beaches all over again.

Posted: 2/27/2006 8:01:43 PM EDT

[#29]

Quoted:
Quoted:
<<Response pre-edited for moderator/staff convenience.>>

Very good..... It will save them time.....

I'm here to help.

Posted: 2/28/2006 1:04:17 AM EDT

[#30]

Quoted:
Now that the Mouhammedeans (my new favorite appelation) are a significant minority,

Muslims find being called a Mouhammedean very offensive, something to do with idolotry...

Posted: 2/28/2006 1:12:39 AM EDT

[#31]

Quoted:
The French sure do have a knack for collaboration, don't they?

Rug factories are popping up everywhere.

Posted: 2/28/2006 1:17:26 AM EDT

[#32]

IBTATL

Posted: 2/28/2006 2:26:10 AM EDT

[#33]

Quoted:
WSJ article; the phrench need to "reach out" to these disaffected young people. dontcha think? (with a .308)

Or a 7.5x54mm.

Posted: 2/28/2006 2:34:00 AM EDT

[#34]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Now that the Mouhammedeans (my new favorite appelation) are a significant minority,

Muslims find being called a Mouhammedean very offensive, something to do with idolotry...

well that's the first Iehard of that

.

Got it from the Brits WW1 period who got it from oh... WESTERN CIVILIZATION. This whole Islamic, and muslim labelling is brand spanking late 20th century. They were, are and will be Mouhammedeans.

The same term for us is Abrahamites. I can dig it.

Posted: 2/28/2006 2:40:37 AM EDT

[#35]

Clearly, it would be wrong to speak poorly of the perpetrator's religion.

Posted: 2/28/2006 3:03:10 AM EDT

[#36]

Quoted:
Why did this not make any front pages here?

Good question. Time to let God sort them out.

Posted: 2/28/2006 3:58:31 AM EDT

[#37]

Quoted:
don't get me started on this. they only now admitted this was an anti-semtic arab on jew killing unrelated to money. I tell every European Jew I know that Europe made it clear that we're not welcome 50 years ago. Now that the Mouhammedeans (my new favorite appelation) are a significant minority, they are folding over and over again. They'd be MORE than happy to sacrifice their jewish communities to the mouhammedeans to save their own asses.

Indeed.

Europe's strategy seems to be to try and equivocate and pacify the Arabs by taking as many anti-Jewish steps as they possibly can in the hopes of convincing the Arabs to be their buddies and friends and to stop blowing them up.

This is the only logical reason I can see that would cause many people in Europe to desire to FUND HAMAS, A KNOWN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION WHO IS DEDICATED TO THE COMPLETE ERRADICATION OF JEWS AND THE JEWISH STATE.

Some may flame me for saying this, but it still needs to be said:

THE HOLOCAUST WAS MERELY A WARMUP. A massive persecution of Jews looms in the future that will rival if not exceed the measures taken against Jews by Hitler and Stalin.

We haven't learned a damn thing from the 20th century, and thus we seem doomed to repeat the ghastly inhumanity of the past.

As they did with Hitler, the Europeans are trying to "make peace" with monsters who live WITHIN their borders now, rather than combatting them like the enemy that they are.

Radical Islam HAS NO PLACE IN WESTERN SOCIETIES. PERIOD.

Posted: 2/28/2006 4:01:28 AM EDT

[#38]

Quoted:
Muslims find being called a Mouhammedean very offensive, something to do with idolotry...

Then we better stop using the word before they decide to kidnap, torture, and murder an innocent Jew in retaliation!

Oh.....Wait.......

Posted: 2/28/2006 4:06:24 AM EDT

[#39]

Quoted:
Why did this not make any front pages here?

They don't want to encourage Hollyweird to make any more movies. Gives people too many new ideas.

Posted: 2/28/2006 4:19:58 AM EDT

[#40]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Why did this not make any front pages here?

They don't want to encourage Hollyweird to make any more movies. Gives people too many new ideas.

But the movie would have southern white male gun owners kidnapping and torturing mexican immigrants.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - French "Youths" Kill Jewish Man After 24 Days of Torture

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