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A court in the Ivory Coast has approved the extradition of the suspected leader of a gang accused of seizing, torturing and killing a young Jew in France. A Justice Ministry spokesman said Youssef Fofana, a 25-year-old French national, could be returned to Paris as early as Friday. France requested his extradition in connection with the killing of Ilan Halimi, 23, in Paris on 13 February. The case shocked France and triggered demonstrations over anti-Semitism. Mr Fofana has allegedly said Mr Halimi was abducted because he was a Jew and therefore presumed to be rich. Mr Halimi was found...

Anti-Semitism may have played a role in the torture and murder of a young Jewish man who was kidnapped and held for ransom, French authorities said Monday. Authorities found 23-year-old Ilan Halimi naked, handcuffed and covered with burn marks last Monday near railroad tracks in the Essonne region south of Paris. He died on the way to a hospital, officials said. Justice Minister Pascal Clement, speaking to reporters outside an annual meeting of France's main Jewish umbrella group, CRIF, confirmed investigators had alleged "aggravated circumstances of anti-Semitism." One 19-year-old suspect was placed under investigation - a step short of formal...

PARIS - The mother of Ilan Halimi, the 23-year-old Parisian Jew who was abducted, tortured and murdered by a gang in a suburb of the capital, accuses the police of missteps that led to her son's death. She revealed to Haaretz Sunday that the police told the family to ignore the gang's attempts to contact them for five critical days, after which Ilan was found near death outside the city. She also accuses the police of ignoring the anti-Semitic motivation in the case in order not to alienate Muslims. "If Ilan hadn't been Jewish, he wouldn't have been murdered," she...

France arrests gang suspected in killing of Parisian Jew By , Haaretz Correspondent PARIS - The French police arrested late Thursday night most of the members of the gang that abducted, tortured and murdered Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Jew from Paris. Hundreds of SWAT officers raided apartments in Bagneux and arrested 12 people. Another suspect was arrested in Belgium. "They acted with indescribable cruelty," the judiciary police chief leading the investigation said. "They kept him naked and tied up for weeks. They cut him and in the end poured flammable liquid on him and set him alight."

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...

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-SemitismThe 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...