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NEWS
French Justice Minister Says Sentences for Halimi Accomplices Too Light
By Arnon Yaffeh, Paris
French Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie permitted the State Prosecutor's Office on Monday to file an appeal against the light sentences handed down to 15 gang members who took part in the torture and murder of Ilan Halimi Hy'd, a 23-year-old French Jew who was tortured for weeks in a basement and dumped at the roadside shortly before he died en route to the hospital two years ago.
The state appeal will require a retrial with a new panel of judges. "The punishments of a portions of the members of the gang known as the Barbarians were lighter than what the prosecution asked for them to receive," said Alliot-Marie as she stepped out of a cabinet meeting at the Elysees. "Therefore I instructed the Paris Prosecutor to file an appeal and to arrange a retrial."
According to speculation, the Minister was given a directive from President Nicolas Sarkozy following demands from Jewish groups to hold a retrial due to several perversions of justice during the course of the first trial, which undermined confidence in the French justice system among Jews, legal fairness advocates and figures fighting antisemitism in the French court system.
Alliot-Marie announced the appeal before a visit with representatives from CRIF, the umbrella organization for French Jewry. "The trial was a missed opportunity to reveal the antisemitism in French society," said CRIF Chairman Richard Prasquier, whose remarks are considered to reflect the sentiments of the Jewish community.
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