Mireille Knoll trial: Yacine Mihoub sentenced to life imprisonment

AFP

TRIAL – Yacine Mihoub was sentenced this Wednesday, November 10 by the Assize Court of Paris to life imprisonment with a safety period of 22 years for the murder of Mireille Knoll, in March 2018.

His co-accused Alex Carrimbacus was acquitted for the murder of the 85-year-old Jewish lady but was sentenced to 15 years in prison with a two-thirds safety sentence for the theft of the victim.

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 9 hours of deliberation.

“This is what we expected”

According to him, “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 social housing for Mireille Knoll.

“It’s just, that’s what we expected. Our family will be able to start mourning ”, reacted Mireille Knoll’s grandson.

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.

Anti-Semitic murder at the heart of the debate

The death of Mireille Knoll, who had fled Paris in 1942 to escape the Vel D’hiv roundup, had aroused great emotion, all the more so than a year earlier, Sarah halimi, a Jewish sexagenarian, had been killed and defenestrated by a man who was ultimately considered 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.

The question of anti-Semitic nature of the crime concentrated the debates in 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 .

See also on The HuffPost: MP Yaël Braun-Pivet reveals the anti-Semitic “rubbish” she receives by email