From the Liveblog of
Monday, September 18, 2017
French teens get suspended sentences for vandalizing Jewish gravestones
A juvenile court in northeastern France suspends the prison sentences of five teenagers who vandalized a Jewish cemetery and damaged a Holocaust memorial.
The defendants, who were 15 to 17 in February 2015 when the vandalism occurred, were sentenced last week to eight to 18 months in prison for toppling and breaking some 300 gravestones in the Jewish cemetery in Sarre-Union, located in the Bas-Rhin region in Alsace. The cemetery is still in use.
A Holocaust memorial monument on the cemetery property also was vandalized.
Each defendant had faced up to seven years in prison. They all reportedly expressed regret for their actions during court hearings on Thursday and Friday.
The five are also each required to serve 140 hours of community service.
— JTA
