A photo of the murdered Mireille Knoll on her apartment door: The horror at the act was great in 2018, not only in France
Photo: Christophe Ena / AP
A good three years after the murder of a Holocaust survivor, a Paris court sentenced the main defendant, Yacine Mihoub, to life imprisonment.
The court imposed a 15-year prison sentence on co-defendant Alex Carrimbacus.
The crime was part of an "overall anti-Semitic context," said presiding judge Frank Zientara.
In March 2018, firefighters discovered the body of 85-year-old Mireille Knoll when they were putting out a fire in her apartment.
The old lady, who had Parkinson's disease and could not move on her own, was killed with eleven stab wounds.
Investigators soon found out that the two men had been in their apartment at the time of the crime.
Both had several previous convictions for theft and acts of violence.
During the investigation and trial, they made contradicting statements and accused each other of the crime.
Both rejected the accusation of anti-Semitism.
Mihoub had known Knoll since childhood.
During the trial, he referred to his mother's neighbor as his surrogate grandma and said that he often went shopping for her.
After the two defendants met in prison, they visited Knoll together in March 2018. Carrimbacus stated in court that Mihoub had suggested stealing from the old lady and claimed that "Jews have a lot of money."
The court now saw it as proven that Mihoub murdered the woman.
It acquitted the co-defendants from the charge of murder, but convicted him, among other things, of theft.
The murder had caused consternation not only in France.
The question of the anti-Semitic character of the crime was then the focus of the court hearing.
The defense argued that the co-defendant only made up the motive.
The court nonetheless came to the conclusion that the hatred of the victim's religious affiliation and the prejudice of the main defendant "that there might be wealth hidden in Mrs. Knoll's social housing" were the cause of the crime.
The grandson of the murdered said he was relieved by the verdict.
"Our family will now be able to begin mourning," he said
atb / AFP