Word: halimi
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...Hundreds of people gathered outside France's Justice Ministry on the evening of July 13 to hail the decision by French authorities to re-try 14 of the 27 people convicted of the abduction and brutal 2006 murder of cell-phone salesman Ilan Halimi. Though the verdict announced on July 10 handed out stiff sentences to the leaders of the gang, Halimi's family, supporters and Jewish groups across the nation were outraged that 14 defendants got lighter punishments than prosecutors had requested. In response, Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie announced Monday evening that she'd ordered prosecutors...
...trial will be held for the group's leader, Youssouf Fofana, 28, who received a life sentence without possibility of parole for 22 years. The other two main accomplices in the kidnapping and torture of Halimi, who was 23, received the maximum sentences of 18 and 15 years. Other members of the self-dubbed "Gang of Barbarians" received sentences ranging between six months and several years...
...plot to kidnap Halimi was predicated on the gang's belief that all Jews are rich. The group had tried to abduct two other Jewish men before ensnaring Halimi - a focus that, along with Fofana's outrageous baiting of Halimi's family during the trial - led French public opinion to belatedly agree with Jewish groups that the crime had been anti-Semitic in nature...
...Halimi's family and backers want the new trial and sentences to both punish the brutality of the murder and serve as a warning that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated in France. They also want the new trial to be held in public and not behind closed doors as the first one was. Under French law, when someone accused of committing a crime as a minor - as was the case with one member of the "Gang of Barbarians" - the hearings are closed to the press and public to protect the defendant's identity. Officials have yet to say whether...
...despite the unspeakable brutality and hatred in Halimi's murder that has unleashed wide condemnation of anti-Semitism in France, some officials are worried that the retrial will set a bad precedent. "Justice isn't the same thing as vengeance," warned Emmanuelle Perreux, president of one of the French legal profession's main labor unions, on radio station RTL. "Giving in to pressure from any [civil party] that believes, and will always believe, that punishment isn't severe enough strikes me as troubling." Perhaps, but as those pushing for a new trial note, adding a few years to prison sentences...