PARIS — The murder of a cell-phone salesman outside Paris has gripped the country’s Jewish community, amid mounting evidence he was tortured and killed partly because of his faith.
For the first time, several top French ministers have suggested that anti-Semitism could have played a role in the death of salesman Ilan Halimi outside Paris and vowed to shed full light on the affair. Justice Minister Pascal Clement suggested Halimi was attacked because he was Jewish and the perpetrators assumed he therefore was rich.
“This affair touches the fundamental values of our country, and calls of protest must emanate not only from Jews, but from the entire French population,” Roger Cukierman, head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, told France 3 television Feb. 21.
Halimi had been kidnapped and tortured for more than three weeks before being found riddled with stab wounds and burns Feb. 13 near a railway line outside Paris. He died on the way to the hospital.
Police suspect a local gang, calling themselves “The Barbarians,” was behind his death. Six suspects are being questioned by a French judge on suspicion of “kidnapping and detention” among other acts. Two French police were also dispatched Feb. 21 to Ivory Coast to hunt down the gang leader, Youssouf Fofana. On March 2, a court in Ivory Coast ruled in favor of extraditing Fofana to France, according to CNN.
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