French justice minister won’t act on Halimi ‘cover up’ trial

Citing the constitutional principle of separation of powers, France’s justice minister says she would not intervene in the trial of a killer whom French Jews said should be charged with a hate crime.

The minister, Nicole Belloubet, says this at the beginning of a meeting she has with the president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, Francis Kalifat, and two of his deputies, CRIF says in a statement. The meeting is about the April 4 slaying of Sarah Halimi, a physician and teacher in her sixties. A neighbor, Kobili Traore, hit her and threw her out of the window of her third-story apartment in Paris.

Traore prayed to God during the incident, which he has admitted perpetrating but maintains was the result of temporary insanity. He has no record of mental illness. Halimi’s daughter says Traore had called her, the daughter, a “dirty Jew” in the elevator of her mother’s building.

Kalifat and many other leaders of France’s Jewish community say Traore’s behavior suggests the killing of Halimi was an anti-Semitic hate crime and demanded he be prosecuted accordingly. However, an indictment filed against him does not mention anti-Semitism or any other aggravating element.

CRIF has called the indictment a cover-up.

Belloubet says she empathizes with Halimi’s relatives and is following the trial closely, but that she would not intervene, the CRIF statement Tuesday says.

— JTA