Anti-Semitism: the murderer of Mireille Knoll sentenced to life imprisonment

Published on : 11/10/2021 – 9:29 PM

Yacine Mihoub was sentenced, Wednesday, November 10, by the Assize Court of Paris to life imprisonment with a safety period of 22 years for the murder in 2018 of Mireille Knoll, with the aggravating circumstance of the belonging of the victim to the Jewish community.

His co-accused Alex Carrimbacus was acquitted for the murder of the octogenarian but sentenced to 15 years imprisonment with a two-thirds safety sentence for the theft of the victim. The anti-Semitic character was also retained for him, as well as the aggravating circumstance of the vulnerability of Mrs. Knoll, 85 years old and very weakened by Parkinson’s disease.

An “anti-Semitic halo”

The court considered that the facts had taken place in a “global anti-Semitic context”, according to the reading made by President Franck Zientara after more than nine hours of deliberation.

According to the court, “the villainous character was fueled by hatred because of the victim’s belonging” to the “Jewish religion” and by “prejudices” of Yacine Mihoub and “beliefs that wealth can be concealed” in the social housing of Mireille Knoll.

“That’s right, that’s what we expected. Our family will be able to start mourning,” responded Mireille Knoll’s grandson.

The question of the anti-Semitic nature of the crime concentrated the debates before the court. Snippets of conversation about the Jews and clichés about their supposed wealth, but also Internet research formed the clusters to determine the “anti-Semitic halo” in which, according to the attorney general and the civil parties, the crime took place .

Eleven stab wounds

On March 23, 2018, firefighters were called in for a fire in an HLM in eastern Paris. On the second floor, they discover the partially charred body of Mireille Knoll, across her hospital bed, legs dangling. His frail body was larded with eleven stab wounds.

The Advocate General had requested life imprisonment with a safety sentence of 18 years.

The death of Mireille Knoll, who had fled Paris in 1942 to escape the Vel d’Hiv roundup, had aroused great emotion, especially since a year earlier, Sarah Halimi, a Jewish sexagenarian, had been killed and defenestrated. by a man ultimately considered to be criminally irresponsible.

Three days after the death of Mireille Knoll, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a judicial investigation for “murder” of an anti-Semitic nature, before the case was referred in July 2020 to the Paris assizes for intentional homicide.

With AFP