Paris, France – The presumed leader of a group of 27 young people charged with participating in the torture and killing of a young French Jew took his seat in juvenile court today with the defiant declaration, “Allah will be victorious.”
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The 23-year-old victim, Ilan Halimi was found naked, handcuffed and covered with burn marks near railroad tracks in the Essonne region south of Paris on Feb. 13, 2006. He died on the way to the hospital after being held captive for more than three weeks.
Youssouf Fofana, 28-year-old presumed leader of a group of 10 young women and 17 young men, stands accused of a crime that shocked the nation. He is charged with premeditated murder, demanding ransom, and acts of torture and barbarism, and faces a possible maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
He smiled as he took is seat inn the Paris court and said, “Allah will be victorious.”
After the opening, the judge ordered the trial be held behind closed doors, with the public and media excluded, as some of the accused were minors at the time of the crime.
With the exception of Fofana, the accused are charged with a variety of crimes, including entrapment, kidnapping by an organized group, sequestration by an organized group that resulted in death, or failing to assist a person in peril.
Fofana and his accomplices tried to kidnap other people, including some of Jewish faith, with the intent to demand ransom before seizing Halimi, the original charges said.
Halimi’s mother, Ruth, said in a French television interview aired this week that she believed the proceedings should be open to the public.
She appeared in court, and sat rocking back and fourth as if in prayer.
The family’s lawyers say Halimi was targeted because he was Jewish. Critics say police initially ignored evidence of anti-Semitic motives in the killing, which caught the attention of senior government officials and prompted fear of a resurgent anti-Semitism in France.
Halimi’s body was reburied in a Jerusalem cemetery in 2007.
Why should he be sad with the french antisemites he will be found not guilty but he does not know what gehonim he will have after he dies then us yiddin will smile
Hashem yinkom domo. I hope and pray the result will comfort the family.
Nikom laynaynoo nikmas dam avadav hashafooch! Those who attack our family members will be shocked at what happens to their own, but at a time when our avengers choose, just like they tortured when they felt like it.
The murderers will be very surprised when they learn in prison what has happened to their own family members. We will not forget. The French courts will teach them no lesson like the one they will learn from our warriors.
Oh god Please put that Cholere in my custody for ten minutes, allah will be very great to him.
I’d like to see that he gets to share a cell with someone like kolko. A chazer like that knows just how to make a young man’s life a living nightmare! Let this guy scream out for alla all he wants…. there will be NOBODY listening.
this despicable sheretz has the chutzpa to mention Allah in connection with his participation in the most evil cruelty ever publicized against an innocent citizen: let’s hear some of those billions of “peaceful Islamic co-religionists” across the globe shrieking out loud against these vermin. And how about the guerilla Islamofascists who love to grab media attention and use violence to express their feelings? None of them is outraged at their next generation’s random, three-week free-for-all against a trapped and kidnapped civil individual??? I know of no other culture which has such depraved youth and would say nothing against them in public.
waterboarding sounds like nothing compared to this torture…
He’s 28 years old and being tried in a juvenile court? What kind of mishegoss is this?
why are his guards with their faces covered? police are scared there?
So let me get this straight: By the grace of Allah the most merciful, a Jew was handcuffed and tortured, not for ransom, but for the sake of torturing an innocent man who happened to be Jewish? Allah should be on trial too.