Posted on 02/19/2006 1:12:54 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
French police launched a wide-range investigation on Tuesday after a twenty three-year-old Jewish man was kidnapped and murdered.
Jewish community security services have said they suspect the crime may have been motivated by anti-Semitism.
Ilan Halimi was found critically wounded, naked and hand-cuffed along a railway track in the suburb of Saint Genevieve des Bois, 30 kilometres south of Paris on Monday, three weeks after he was kidnapped by a gang in Paris.
The victim, who was burnt and cut on 80 percent of his body, died of his wounds as he was taken to hospital.
Series of crimes
Judiciary Police Chief Francois Jaspar and general attorney of Paris Jean-Claude Marin said that at least three other similar criminal kidnapping attempts have been reported since last December, but that previous ones have failed.
In each case, one of three young women, a blond, a brunette and an Arab woman, or a young man would attract the victim on a date, during which the victim would be attacked by the rest of the gang. Ilan Halimi was the only victim who was caught by the gang.
Jaspar and Marin did not mention the victim’s Jewish identity or any anti-Semitic aspect in this affair but community security services suspect the kidnappers who tortured the young man may have had anti-Semitic motives.
Anti-Semitism suspected
The French Anti-Semitism Vigilance Bureau (BVCA) has asked the police to investigate and determine whether there is or not an anti-Semitic background to this affair and more specifically whether the gang is targeting Jews.
Sammy Ghozlan, the Bureau’s head, told EJP only one of the four targeted persons was not Jewish.
According to the AFP and Jewish community services, the victim, a cellular phone salesman was attracted by a young Arab woman who came to his place of work, on Voltaire boulevard, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, on January 17.
Ilan Halimi was kidnapped on the night of January 21, when he was to meet the young woman.
After the kidnapping, the gang contacted Ilan’s family and demanded a ransom of 450,000 euros.
Realising the victim’s family was unable to gather such a sum of money, the gang reduced the ransom to 50,000 euros and threatened to kill the young man.
The kidnappers sent a photo of Ilan via the internet with death threats but failed to arrive at several meetings to collect the ransom from the young man’s relatives. The last phone call with the gang was on Thursday.
"We fear that the fact that Ilan was Jewish aggravated his case and caused his abductors to behave as Islamists. Why did the kidnappers, once they discovered that Ilan’s family was not wealthy, as they had thought, not let him go and instead tortured him to death?" asked Sammy Ghozlan.
In a statement, the Anti-Semitism Vigilance Bureau said it "shares the deep emotion of the Jewish community of Paris and in particular of the residents of the 11th district."
Ilan Halimi will be buried Friday at the cemetery of Pantin, in the suburbs of Paris.
ROP alert
Terrible.
How long will Europe allow this behavior to continue without lifting a finger?
Weenies. Morons. Cowards.
Youths just want to have fun.
Won't make the mainstream news in France.
Like we're any better off? The U.S. is facing the same problem, we're just a generation behind. More European editors had the courage to reprint the 12 cartoons than U.S. editors.
Politically correct people who don't insist on limiting immigration into the U.S. are creating the same problems hers.
Its that religion of peace again.
What do we expect from the ROP.
"French police launched a wide-range investigation on Tuesday after a twenty three-year-old Jewish man was kidnapped and murdered"
This is a little like the cartoon thing, sometimes its the smaller item that sheds the most light. When they plot and scheme to kill just an average joe on the city streets, it kind of brings it home about who they really are.
I didn't think so, either. Wrong minority group.
Which British newspaper will be publishing the pictures?
When they kill members of the ruling elite, like Chirac.
Jews are another story.
How long will Europe allow this behavior to continue without lifting a finger?
When did they ever stop it?
The French will make a lot of sympathetic noise.
They had castrated him, cut off his fingers, gouged out his eyes and he was still alive when they found him, only to die in the ambulance.
Supposedly the father was contacted during the funeral and was threatened the same for his wife if the money was not forthcoming.
My husband came home and has been updating me as the days go. We live in Paris, in the 20ème (next to the 11ème, where his store is), and the whole jewish community has been talking of nothing else for days.
We know people who know the family, and that is where I heard about the father being contacted during the funeral.
Something else that is not reported but is 'common knowledge' is that there have been other successful kidnappings, but payment was made and accepted, whereas here, the ransom was too high, and then they cut off all communication and tortured this boy to death....
From most of the news articles, the newspapers are doing the same thing to this they did with the Danish cartoons - they are hiding the relevant facts!
I don't think that the US papers refused to print the cartoons because they lacked courage. They printed the Abu Ghraib photos knowing that they'd cause retaliation. They send their own reporters into harm's way all the time. The reason they printed the Abu Ghraib photos but not the cartoons is that the Abu Ghraib photos were embarrassing to Bush, but the cartoons are embarrassing to Islam.
They want to embarrass Bush--not Islam.
You are correct on all points.
We are indeed a nation of weenies when it comes to pacifying the crazies and I too find it a complete embarrassment.
As I probably said somewhere before, while I like this President, there are many things that I am not in agreement with.
Maybe this is extreme, but I think that anyone who professes to be a moslem should be kicked out of this country. AT the very least, immigration should not be allowed for MORe of them.
And BUILD THAT DAMN WALL along our borders. The Israelis will explain to us, how to do it.
Islam is a religion of peace. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.
I SAID MOVE ALONG OR YOU'LL BE BEHEADED!
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