Posted on 02/19/2006 4:21:02 AM PST by Hannah Senesh
Ilan Halimi, 23-year-old Parisian man, found tied to tree, naked, wounded, with burns covering his body; police arrest 13 suspects, say act not motivated by anti-Semitism
The French police arrested 13 people on suspicion of kidnapping, torturing and murdering Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Parisian Jew.
Halimi was found on Monday tied to a tree, naked and wounded, with burns covering all parts of his body. He died on the way to the hospital.
Police officials said that the abduction and murder were apparently not motivated by anti-Semitism, but added that they have not yet discovered what led the group to commit the acts.
The affair, which stunned France's Jewish community, began about a month ago, when a good-looking young woman entered a cellular phone store in Paris, where Halimi worked, and began talking to him.
The two exchanged telephone numbers, and after speaking on the phone a number of times, set a meeting in a suburb south of Paris. Halimi left for the meeting on January 20, and has been missing ever since.
Later, the kidnappers contacted Halimi's family members and asked them for a ransom of Euro 400,000 (about USD 476,239). The family, however, was unable to collect such a large amount of money, and the kidnappers thus lowered their demand to Euro 5,000 (5,953). Then, a week and a half ago, they stopped contacting the family.
Failed abduction attempts
The police, who had launched a secret investigation into the affair, were unable to locate the kidnappers, who had used stolen cellular phones and were photographed wearing masks.
The investigation did reveal that the kidnappers had already attempted to execute similar abductions at least four times before, but had failed for various reasons.
Over the weekend, French newspapers revealed that 12 out of the 13 suspects arrested, aged 17 to 32, were captured in the suburb south of Paris where Halimi was tortured.
Among the detainees was also the young woman, whose photo was published in the newspapers as the seducing girl. The girl claimed that she was indeed asked to seduce a number of young men, but was unaware of the act's purpose.
The last suspect in the affair was arrested in Belgium.
The investigation into the affair was handed to the Parisian police's severe crimes unit, and it is being personally supervised by Paris' public prosecutor.
Despite the police's doubts, Halimi's family believes that the act was motivated by anti-Semitism.
We think there is anti-Semitism in this affair, Rafi, Ilans brother-in-law, told the European Jewish Press. First because the killers tried to kidnap at least two other Jews, and secondly because of what they said on the phone."
When we said we didnt have Euro 500,000 to give them, they answered we should go to the synagogue and get it, Rafi stressed.
They also recited verses from the Koran. We didnt know what they were saying but the police told us," he said.
They are saying, basically, that they are up against a "Nazislamist" cancer and that current leadership lacks the guts to acknowledge it, much less fight it. If it had been a muslim victim, government officials would have bent over backwards to be part of the funeral spectacle. Few were present at the funeral of Ilan Hamili. One woman called for all frenchmen to wear a yamika as a display of solidarity against the islamofascists.
The french aren't the only ones living in fear. How many newspapers in the USA have printed the mo cartoons? One?
All very terrifying.
Thanks very much for that!
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
No, no, the police say it wasn't a hate crime either.
Just another everyday, run of the mill spontaneous act that took a month to commit while the victim, a Jew, was held by morroccan immigrants, tortured and then tied to a tree to be left to die.
And remember, the victim didn't die at the hands of his abusers, but died on the way to the hospital after he was found.
Oh, pardon me. Sarcasm < off >.
France (and Europe) has a recent history of ignoring and denying a tremendous increase in hate crimes against their Jewish citizens by Muslims. It began with the second Intifadah. Such crimes reached record numbers post WW2 and have largely been ignored in France (and Europe).
...............
We are surprised and disappointed that President Chirac continues to dismiss the very real concern that Jewish organizations, human rights groups, members of Congress and others have raised with regard to the recent surge of anti-Semitic incidents in France. The French authorities and Jewish organizations have reported more than 400 incidents of anti-Jewish violence since September 2000, including firebombings of synagogues, violent assaults and vandalism to Jewish institutions and property. To describe this troubling trend as "a few incidents," as President Chirac does in his interview with The New York Times, is to deny the extent of the problem and to denigrate the concerns of world Jewry and others.
http://www.adl.org/presrele/ASInt_13/4158_13.asp
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=12163
"Islam is a religion of peace"..,.Barf!
Torturers' Iraq link
Jason Burke in Paris
Sunday February 19, 2006
The Observer
Criminals who tortured and killed a young hostage, keeping him naked and hooded and burning him repeatedly before throwing him from a train, were inspired by images from Iraq, according to a French prosecutor.
Jean-Claude Martin, a senior government lawyer, said that the kidnappers, who kept their victim imprisoned for three weeks, were 'repeating things they had seen practised elsewhere'.
Police have distributed a picture of Youssef Fofana, 26, who is the presumed head of the gang. Last week, a young woman, suspected of acting as 'the lure' in the murder, gave herself up. Raids then resulted in the arrest of 15 other suspects, aged between 17 and 32, in a poor suburb of Bagneux, near Paris.
The 23-year-old victim is thought to have been starved and tortured while negotiations with his family for a ransom of up to 450,000 continued. According to a police source, the violence was 'gratuitous, extreme, spontaneous and without any limits or boundaries'.
The gang was composed of jobless youths from the suburbs around Paris which erupted in violent riots last autumn. They are believed to have made several previous attempts at kidnapping. According to the Liberation newspaper, the gang was inspired by a film which had itself been inspired by a press report.
Jean-Claude Marin, the public prosecutor of Paris, shows the photograph of the supposed leader of the gang, Youssef Fofana.
Ilan Halimi who was murdered
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.
That is awful. When a bestial religion teaches terrorism this is what you get. Muslims have done this to Israeli POWs in the major wars of 1967, 1973 etc.
Allah's Apostle (that's would be Muhammad) said:
"I have been made victorious with terror" Bukhari 4:52:220
Where did you hear his eyes were gouged out and he was emasculated?
Sorry, left just after posting.
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.
Translation follows
Parmi les suspects mis en examen samedi figure la jeune femme blonde censée attirer les victimes du groupe de kidnappeurs, et dont le témoignage avait permis l'arrestation d'une bonne partie du gang. Le "cerveau" est toujours en fuite.
Les trois premiers suspects interpellés dans l'enquête sur le gang des ravisseurs, soupçonné d'avoir enlevé et tué Ilan Halimi, 23 ans, ont été mis en examen samedi par la juge d'instruction parisienne Corinne Goetzmann. Parmi elles figure Audrey Lorleach, 24 ans, la jeune femme blonde utilisée comme "appât" par le gang de ravisseurs, dont deux portraits-robots avaient été diffusés dans la presse. "Cette jeune fille a eu beaucoup de courage de se livrer parce qu'elle était horrifiée de ce qui s'était passé", a expliqué son avocat, Me Jean Balan, selon qui sa cliente a été entraînée dans cette affaire "car elle était amoureuse d'un type de la bande" qui a été interpellé par la suite.
Reconnue dans un journal par une de ses amies, elle s'était livrée jeudi au commissariat de Montrouge. Ce sont les informations "significatives" qu'elle a fournies aux enquêteurs qui leur ont permis de procéder, dans la nuit de jeudi à vendredi, à l'interpellation d'une dizaine de suspects, principalement dans la cité du Tertre de Bagneux. Durant sa garde à vue à la brigade criminelle, la jeune femme a avoué avoir attiré des jeunes hommes, précisant qu'elle ne savait pas ce qui risquait de leur arriver.
Les appâts, les kidnappeurs, les geôliers et les négociateurs
Cette jeune femme a servi "d'appât" pour deux victimes successives mais, ayant échoué, elle a été écartée du groupe, avait précisé vendredi le procureur de la République de Paris, Jean-Claude Marin. Son amie qui l'avait reconnue dans le journal a également été mise en examen pour "non-dénonciation de crime". Le troisième mis en examen est un prêteur sur gage africain interpellé mardi. Il est soupçonné d'avoir pu servir d'intermédiaire dans le cas où une remise d'argent aurait été organisée.
Au total, quinze personnes, âgées de 17 à 32 ans, soupçonnées d'être en lien avec le gang qui avait enlevé et tué Ilan Halimi, ont été interpellées dans cette affaire : quatorze en France, principalement à la cité du Tertre de Bagneux, et un à Bruxelles, où une rançon demandée par les ravisseurs d'Ilan devait un moment être versée. Outre les trois personnes mises en examen, trois ont depuis été remises en liberté et huit seront présentées lundi à la juge d'instruction, a précisé une source judiciaire.
Le groupe, qui selon la police aurait réalisé six autres tentatives d'enlèvement, se répartirait entre ceux qui jouaient les appâts (essentiellement des jeunes filles), ceux chargés de l'enlèvement, les geôliers et les négociateurs, férus de téléphonie et d'Internet, qui ont réussi à communiquer avec la famille d'IIan en brouillant les pistes. La police poursuit son enquête pour retrouver le cerveau présumé de la bande, âgé de 26 ans, qui se fait appeler "brain of barbarians" (le cerveau des barbares) et a échappé au coup de filet. Les enquêteurs comptent notamment sur la diffusion de sa photo dans la presse pour retrouver sa piste. Son bras droit et l'aguicheuse, une jeune femme "avenante" d'origine maghrébine qui avait attiré Ilan dans un guet-apens mortel, sont également recherchés.
Thanks much!
Any coverage of this monsterous beastial activity in our cowardly, self-censored, dhimmi U.S. media??
Or are they too busy rehashing old Iraq prison photos to cover this Muslim crime?
Among the the suspects interrogated on Saturday we find a young blond whose job was to lure victims to the kidnappers, and whose statements led to the successful arrest of most of the gang. The 'brains' of the gang is still on the loose.
The 3 first suspects in the kidnapping and torture of Ilan Halimi 23, were interrogated on Saturday by the judge Corinne Goetzmann. Among them Audrey Lorleach, 24, who was used as bait, and whose computer generated photo had been publicised in the press. "This girl has a lot of courage to have come forward because she was horrified by what has happenned" explained her lawyer Jean Balan, explaining that his client had been dragged into this affair due to her "love for one of the gang members", who has since been captured.
Her newspaper likeness was recognised by one of her friends and then went to the police in Montrouge. It was upon significant information that she gave to the investigators than evening that allowed them to trap 10 suspects from Thursday night to Friday morning. Most of these came from the suburb of Tertre de Bagneux. During her stay at the criminal station, she admitted having lured young men, insisting that she did not know what was going to happen to them.
THE LURE, THE KIDNAPPERS, THE PRISONERS AND THE NEGOCIATORS
The young woman had unsucessfully tried two times, and having been unsuccsessful had been put on the sidelines by the group, claimed the state prosecutor, Jean)-Claude Marin.
Her friend who recognised her from the photo was also interrogated for not reporting the crime. The third person questioned was suspected of serving as the intermediary in case of payment of ransom. He is an african money lender/ pawn shop owner.
In all, 15 people, from 17 to 32 years old have been arrested in this affair, all suspected of having some role in the kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi. Fourteen of these in France, and one in Belgium, where the ransom for Ilan was at one point supposed to be delivered.
Of these 15, 8 still remain in custody, and 3 have been released.
According to the police, this group has already attempted 6 previous kidnappings, and share the jobs of lure (mostly the girls), the kidnappers, and the jailers and the negociators who by using cell phones connected to the internet managed to communicate with the family of Ilan and muddled up the affair. The police are still searching for the supposed head of the gang: 26 year old who is nick-named the "brain of the barbarians" who has so far eluded their net.
Investigators are hoping that the widely diffused photo will allow them to trap him. They are likewise searching for his 'right-hand man' and the seductive woman of magreb descent,who lured Ilan into the lethal ambush.
see above translation
It headlined in the French papers Saturday and Sunday, but I've seen nothing anywhere else.
Crime was
1) "Inspired by pictures from Iraq"
2) Muslim perps
3) Jewish victims
4) Told the family to "get ransom money from synagogue"
5) High incidence of hate crimes by Muslims against Jews in France
logical conclusion -- hate crime directed at a Jew
French official whitewashed conclusion -- no religious motive.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.