French President Emanuel Macron on Sunday expressed support for the country’s Jewish community and his efforts to execute the killer of Sarah Halimi, following a ruling by the French Supreme Court that Kobili Traore was not criminally responsible because he smoked marijuana.
And he said he would try a change in laws to prevent such a case from happening again.
In a rare and controversial critique of the French legal system, Macron said that drug use and ‘going crazy’ should not take away criminal responsibility.
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition by Email and Never Miss Our Top Stories Free Sign Up
Macron yesterday in January last year criticized the insanity of a lower court by a sharp riposte of the country’s leading magistrates.
‘It is not for me to comment on a court decision, but I would like to express to the family, the relatives of the victim and all our Jewish citizens who were awaiting trial, my heartfelt support and the determination of the Republic to protect them, ”Macron told Le Figaro.
Macron said that France “does not judge citizens who are not ill, we treat them … But to decide to take drugs and then ‘go crazy’ should not, in my opinion, take away your criminal responsibility. ‘
He added: ‘I would like to have the Minister of Justice [Eric Dupond-Moretti] to present an amendment to the law as soon as possible. ”
Sarah Halimi, an Orthodox Jewish woman in her sixties, died in 2017 after being pushed by neighbor Traore through the window of her Paris apartment, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (‘God is great’ in Arabic).
But in a ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s rulings that Traore could not stand trial because he was too high on marijuana to be criminally responsible for his actions.
Traore, a heavy pot smoker, has been in psychiatric care since Halimi’s death. The court said he committed the murder after conceding to a ‘misleading pace’ and was therefore not responsible for his actions.
Sarah Halimi was beaten before she was thrown from her roof of her Paris apartment in April 2017. (Thanks to the Halimi family)
An appeals court said Traore, who was now in his early thirties, had anti-Semitic prejudice and that the murder was partly related to it. But it also accepts the defense claims that Traore was too high to be tried for his actions and that he was placed in a psychiatric institution.
Macron said earlier that there is a need for a trial, even if a judge decides that there is no criminal liability.
The court ruling, which means Traore cannot stand trial in any French court, has angered anti-racism groups who say the verdict endangers Jews.
Due to the debate over a new kind of anti-Semitism among radicalized Muslim youths in predominantly immigrant neighborhoods, dealing with Halimi’s death is a watershed event for many French Jews, saying it is the failure of the French state to deal with emphasize anti-Semitism.
About 1,000 members of the French Jewish community gathered outside the home of Sarah Halimi in Paris to commemorate her alleged anti-Semitic murder on April 9, 2017. (Screenshot: 0404 Video)
“This is an additional drama that contributes to this tragedy,” the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) said after the ruling.
“From now on in your country, you can kill and kill Jews with impunity,” added Francis Kalifat, President of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF).
The director of international relations, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Shimon Samuels, calls the decision a ‘devastating blow’, which he says’ potentially sets a precedent for all hate criminals to simply claim insanity or decide to smoke drugs. snore or inject or even get drunk before committing their crimes. ”
French Jews have been repeatedly targeted by jihadists in recent times, especially in 2012, when an Islamic gunman shot dead three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in the southern city of Toulouse, and in 2015 a pro-Islamic State. -radically shot down. four people at a Jewish supermarket in Paris.
Following the ruling on Wednesday, lawyers representing Halimi’s family said they wanted to refer the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
“This is a bad message for French Jewish citizens,” said Halimi’s lawyer Muriel Ouaknine Melki.
