Yousouf Fofana, leader of the self-styled Parisian “Gang of Barbarians,” has confessed at his trial to the brutal murder of Ilan Halimi HY”D, a 23-year old Jew, three years ago, after torturing him for 24 days. The anti-Semitic crime appalled the 600,000-strong French Jewish community, which accuses the government of still neglecting to curb the rising tide of anti-Semitism sweeping in France.

The trial is proceeding behind closed doors because two of the 26 accused were juveniles at the time.

Halimi’s body was found in February 2006 at a Paris suburban railway station, naked, handcuffed and covered in burn marks from cigarettes. He died of stab wounds to his neck on the way to hospital.

A girl was used by the kidnappers to lure Halimi. They held him captive and tortured while demanding a 450,000 euros ransom because, Fofana told his accomplices, Halimi was a Jew and the Jewish community was rich. Fofana who made gang members call him “Osama,” fled to the Ivory Coast after the murder and was extradited to France for trial.

The victim’s mother Ruth Halimi has published a book about her son’s ordeal, comparing it to the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl, the American-Jewish journalist beheaded by Muslim terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. She arranged to bring his body to Israel for burial in view of the systematic desecration of Jewish graves in France.

Heads of the French Jewish community fear that Halimi’s murder was not the last.

Three years later, the situation has gone from bad to worse. Anti-Semitic insults and violence occur daily in Paris, where Jews avoid the Metro, stay home at night and hide their yarmulkas. Many have decided the community has no future in France and made arrangements to relocate in Israel.

(Source: Debka / AFP)