Murder of Mireille Knoll in 2018: two men tried from this Tuesday – LCI

It was initially for a fire in a building on Avenue Philippe Auguste in the 11th arrondissement of Paris that they were called. Upon their arrival on March 23, 2018 at around 6.30 p.m., after going through the door of one of the apartments on the 6th floor, the firefighters discovered the horror. Before their eyes, a woman, across her medical bed, legs dangling, stabbed 11 times and partly charred. The victim, of Jewish origin, was called Mireille Knoll. She was 85 years old and had Parkinson’s disease.

From this Tuesday, October 26, two men are tried before the Paris Assize Court for this murder, the anti-Semitic nature of which has been retained. One is called Yacine Mihoub, he is the son of Mireille Knoll’s neighbor. The victim had known him since he was a child and loved him very much. He was passing by to visit her after his recent release from prison. At home, he drank Port – plenty of it – and chatted with the octogenarian. The day of the murder, Yacine Mihoub, 28, isolated and unstable, was joined on the spot by Alex Carrimbacus, a 21-year-old marginal with a psychiatric history met in prison.

Both face “murder of a vulnerable person committed on the basis of the victim’s religion”, “aggravated theft” and “degradation by means dangerous to persons”.

The two men’s versions of the facts are always opposed: Alex Carrimbacus assures us that Yacine Mihoub offered to join him at the old lady for “a money plan”, the second assures that it was just for “have a good time” while drinking glasses.

On the spot, according to the version of Alex Carrimbacus, the tone rises when Yacine Mihoub accuses Mireille Knoll of having him “balance” and sent to prison. “You will pay for that”, he told her, before carrying the octogenarian who could not move alone “like a princess” up to his bed, then slit his throat at the cries of “God is great”.

For his part, Yacine Mihoub assures us that Alex Carrimbacus would immediately have asked if the old lady was “armored”, then started stacking furs and knickknacks – “worry, I manage”. Yacine Mihoub then reportedly heard the old lady screaming from her bedroom and saw Alex Carrimbacus stab her violently.

Each also accuses the other of having launched the various starts of fire in the apartment. To the investigators who are surprised that they still spent the rest of the evening together, both explain having had “fear” the other. Versions “not very credible” according to the prosecution, delivered by two men known for their propensity to lie and manipulate, and repeatedly convicted of theft and violence in particular.

The mother of Yacine Mihoub, accused in particular of having cleaned the knife potentially used in the crime, will appear alongside them for “destruction or modification of evidence of a crime”.

The investigating judges decided to retain the anti-Semitic nature of the murder on the basis of a statement in police custody by Alex Carrimbacus, who had “believed to hear” Yacine Mihoub “to talk about the financial means of the Jews, about their good situation”, and Mireille Knoll intervene “to explain that not all Jews had a good situation”. The survey also showed “Yacine Mihoub’s ambivalence vis-à-vis Islamist terrorism which notably advocates anti-Semitism”, noted the judges – specifying, however, that no one had ever heard him utter anti-Semitic words.

“The judges were unable to resist the pressure of public opinion”, at the time regretted the defense of Yacine Mihoub, who did not wish to speak before the trial. Alex Carrimbacus “will remain in his position. Unlike Yacine Mihoub, he had no reason to blame” to Mireille Knoll, declared his lawyer Me Karim Laouafi.

“Satisfied” the treatment by justice of this “overwhelming record”, the lawyer for the sons of Mireille Knoll, Me Gilles-William Goldnadel, for his part hoped for a “severe punishment” for this “horrible crime”. The tragedy, which took place a year after the murder in Paris of Sarah Halimi, a Jewish sexagenarian thrown from her balcony, had caused great “white march” in Paris and relaunched the debate on a “new anti-Semitism” linked to the Islamization of certain neighborhoods.

Mireille Knoll was killed “because Jewish” had proclaimed President Emmanuel Macron, an indignation shared in particular in the United States and in Israel, in the face of the fate of this woman who had fled Paris in 1942 to escape the anti-Semitic roundups.

The trial is scheduled to last until November 10. Both defendants face life imprisonment.