France’s Court of Cassation’s Supreme Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld the ruling of lower courts that the killer of Sarah Halimi cannot stand trial for her grisly murder since he smoked marijuana beforehand.
The court accepted the defense claims that Kobili Traoré – who murdered Halimi in 2017 while screaming anti-Semitic epithets – was too high on marijuana to be criminally responsible for his actions.
The Court of Cassation claimed that since Traore’s sense of “discernment” was clouded by an “acute delirious puff” of marijuana, he could not “be judged criminally even when his mental state was caused by the regular consumption of drugs.”
Traore is currently confined to a psychiatric hospital but can be released if doctors decide he no longer poses a danger to others.
“Sarah Halimi was beaten mercilessly, her body thrown from her apartment window while her killer called her satan and a dirty Jew,” former New York Times journalist Bari Weiss wrote in response to the verdict. “Kobili Traoré had 22 prior convictions. But he will not be prosecuted for murder because . . . he smoked weed.”
Why is France, a country under the rule of law, allowing pot smoke to obstruct justice?@Courdecassation ruled that the alleged torturer & murderer of Dr. #SarahHalimi, a Parisian Jewish grandmother, will never have to stand trial b/c he was high. Seriouslyhttps://t.co/8dq6EFEIbs pic.twitter.com/wWBMzf5rrZ
— American Sephardi Federation (ASF) (@AmericanSephard) April 14, 2021
“Now in our country, we can torture and kill Jews with impunity,” wrote Francis Kalifat, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF).
“[The decision] “potentially creates a precedent for all hate criminals to simply claim insanity or decide to smoke, snort or inject drugs or even get drunk before committing their crimes,” stated Shimon Samuels, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s director for international relations.
“Today we can smoke, snort and inject ourselves in high doses to the point of causing ourselves an ‘acute delirious puff’ which abolishes our ‘discernement,‘ and we will benefit from criminal irresponsibility,” lawyer Oudy Bloch told French media outlets.
This was the last appeal that Halimi’s relatives could submit in France but the lawyers representing the family said they plan on referring the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
Is HaShem sending France Jews a sign? They cannot light Menorahs outside and their killers are not imprisioned. What is next?
An outrage!
FRENCH JUSTICE. Why would that rotzeach be culpable, after all, he only tortured and killed a Jew. Had he spit on the sidewalk that would make him culpable. Golus Edom
Absolutely insane
And yet French law (per google search) for unintentionally killing someone while driving drunk (and presumably ‘discernment’ is impaired) is:
If you cause serious physical harm or commit involuntary manslaughter (you kill someone while driving), penalties may be: 10 year prison sentence and a fine of up to €150,000.
The inconsistency is glaring.
And we are legalizing the smoking of weed…
if Hashem allowed Germany to prosper and once again become a world power after WW2, i do not expect the heavens to open up and pour sulfur at the sight of such a tremendous injustice.
The last time the heavenly wrath was unleashed on the goyim at a national level was when we left egypt. And that is why we mention it twice daily, the evil was punished that time for everyone to see. When moshiach come we will see it once again