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Murder victim Sarah's family hope for justice

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A Franco-Israeli woman raises a placard during a rally on April 25, 2021, in front of the French Embassy in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, after the killer of a Jewish woman in Paris in 2017, avoided being tried on the grounds he acted in delirium due to drug-taking. The writing on the placard reads: "J'accuse or I accuse, in reference to the title of a 1898 article by French writer Emile Zola regarding the Dreyfus affair. - Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman, died in 2017 after being pushed out of the window of her Paris flat by neighbour Traore, 27, who shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great" in Arabic). Traore, a heavy cannabis smoker, has been in psychiatric care since Halimi's death and he remains there after the ruling. The court said he committed the killing after succumbing to a "delirious fit" and was thus not responsible for his actions. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

The family of a murdered Jewish Frenchwoman whose killer avoided trial because his crime was blamed on cannabis-induced psychosis hope a new probe will give them a chance of justice. 

The decision not to put Kobili Traore on trial for Sarah Halimi’s murder caused widespread outrage across France and the world. 

Traore broke into the flat of Mrs Halimi, 65, his neighbour in Paris, in April 2017. Shouting antisemitic slogans, he threw the kindergarten directoro off her balcony to her death.  

Last April, France’s top court upheld the decision he should not be tried. Psychiatric experts said Traore had psychosis caused by cannabis. He was placed in a mental hospital. 

But others criticised the decision, saying he had taken the  drugs by choice. Mrs Halimi’s family allege he targeted her deliberately and fooled experts afterwards.     

A parliamentary commission into the killing begins this week. Mrs Halimi’s brother William Attal said: “I hope this case will prove at last that Kobili Traore premeditated the killing. This was a horrifying deliberate antisemitic murder. Investigators who worked on the case, the investigating judge and my sister’s neighbours who witnessed the killing will testify for the first time.”  

Mr Attal’s lawyer Muriel Ouaknine-Melki told the JC: “Our hope is that this investigation will uncover new elements that will allow us to reopen the case and bring the killer to justice. 

"The goal of the inquiry is not to denounce the mishandling of the investigation because any justice professional knows this. No one can say that it’s normal not to examine a suspected killer’s phone line. Reenacting a murder scene is almost systematic. Refusing to do so is a huge failing. It amounts to malpractice. 

“Unfortunately, legal acts that investigators failed to carry out can no longer be performed. But new elements may still emerge from the hearings.”

The inquiry is due to last six months. 

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