Disturbing evidence in the case of the defenestration of Lucie Sarah Halimi has emerged that her neighbours tried to intervene to help her, but were stopped by three policemen. The Tablet has the tragic story (with thanks: Paul) :
Lucie Sarah Halimi, 66, was murdered on the night of April 3, thrown
out of her window after having been beaten in her own apartment on the
Rue de Vaucouleurs in the hip Parisian neighborhood of Belleville. While
attacked, she had the time to cry for help, and to throw plates and
dishes—either at her attacker in an attempt to defend herself, or on the
floor to make noise and alert people nearby.
March in sympathy with the murder victim, Sarah Halimi, killed when thrown out of the window of her apartment in Paris.
Halimi was a religious woman who, albeit Sephardic, worked for the Orthodox synagogue of the Rue Pavée in the ancient Pletzel—the
traditional Ashkenazi neighborhood of Paris. Her attacker was a
27-year-old African Muslim whose name has not been disclosed, and who
lived with his mother, his stepfather, and his brother down the street
from Halimi’s apartment. A drug addict and a drug dealer, he had an
argument at home with his own family earlier, and in an emotional state,
had first knocked at several doors before entering No. 30 and asking
one of the residents there to shelter him for the night. When the man
refused, he threatened him. He then reached the balcony’s apartment and,
from there, climbed up to Halimi’s apartment, which was upstairs.
Several people, including his own family, called the police.
As Sarah Halimi was being beaten by her attacker, she began to shout
for help and her neighbors gathered to intervene. They were stopped
short by three policemen, who were either arriving on the scene or
already present, and who refused to act until backup arrived. Powerless,
like the neighbors, the policemen remained in the street and watched
Sarah Halimi’s body fall to the pavement. The subsequent autopsy report
assessed that she was still alive and probably conscious when she was
propelled out the window of her apartment, and that she died from the
impact of the fall rather than from the blows she’d received. At some
point during the course of the incident, her killer was distinctly heard
shouting “Allahu akbar,” a phrase he repeated several
times. The police investigation is still unfolding, and Halimi’s killer
has been placed under psychiatric care.
These are facts.
From then on, things got blurry.
The following day, three things happened:
• While Jewish institutions were granted an audience by the state
prosecutor (the French D.A.) and promised “all the truth” in the case,
the Jewish press denounced an anti-Semitic crime perpetrated by an
Islamist terrorist.
Representative Meyer Habib wrote on his Facebook
page: “Is [the alleged killer] a jihadist? Moved by the anti-Semitism
that plagues a part of the Arab-Muslim population? I’m afraid so.” On
Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, rumors spread that Sarah Halimi had
been stabbed, that her murderer was an avowed terrorist, that he had
justified his deed by the Quran and that he was chased by the RAID team
(the elite police corps) when the crime had occurred. From Israel where
he lives, Sarah Halimi’s son Jonathan denounced the anti-Semitic insults
that Sarah Halimi’s children had been subjected to for years by the
killer, one of the killer’s sisters and by his parents.
• Meanwhile, the national press, TVs or radios remained totally
silent on the case. It took a Jewish journalist by the name of Claude
Askolovitch writing
an op-ed for Slate’s French site to reflect and explain the mind-set of
the French media: The killer was obviously deranged. He was now under
psychiatric care rather than in jail. He had first tried to force his
way into several apartments whose inhabitants were not Jewish.
Read article in full
No mention of the attack at the Hyper Cache supermarket.
ReplyDeleteThe last paragraph is rather O-Henry-esque, and seems to imply/explain many things.
The paragraph presents a new way for criminals to complete a crime: Yell in Arabic, and police won't react in case this is a terrorist act
ReplyDelete--malca
"the hip Parisian neighborhood of Belleville"
ReplyDeletefrom what I know, I would hardly describe Belleville as "hip." Yes, I have been through there, in a car to be sure. Many Jews did live there in the 1960s and 1970s.
Also, I have read reports that the murderer lived in the same building as Dr Halimi and that his family was also hostile to her and her family. I have read that his sister shoved and cursed Elisheva, Dr Halimi's daughter, on the stairs ["Sarah Halimi’s son Jonathan denounced the anti-Semitic insults that Sarah Halimi’s children had been subjected to for years by the killer, one of the killer’s sisters and by his parents."]. Furthermore, no mention that mourners who marched to her apartment in protest were subject to taunts and other verbal abuse, including threats, from a group of young neighborhood hoodlums.
I think that this article is hardly the last word on the subject.