The legal outcome of the murder of Mireille Knoll will not experience the same bitter fate as that of Sarah Halimi, which had ended in the irresponsibility of the murderer. The examining magistrates responsible for the investigation into the murder of Mireille Knoll, a Jewish eighty-year-old woman killed in Paris in March 2018, ordered a trial under assault for "murder of a vulnerable person and committed because of the religion of the victim" against the two suspects, Yacine Mihoub and Alex Carrimbacus. The judges thus confirm the position of the Paris prosecutor's office which, on May 14, requested the referral of the two men to the Assize Court for intentional homicide with aggravating circumstances: the vulnerability of the victim and his religious affiliation.
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The old lady had received eleven stab wounds to her apartment in an apartment building in eastern Paris, and her body had been partially burned. The case had all the more moved public opinion since one of his murderers, Yacine Mihoub, 30 years old today, was the victim's neighbor, who had known him since he was 8 years old. During an incarceration in Fleury-Mérogis, the latter had met his future accomplice, Alex Carrimbacus, a 25-year-old marginal, under reinforced curatorship, reputed for his violence. Both have high criminal records: theft, possession of narcotics and sexual assault for Yacine Mihoub, and violence, possession of narcotics and breaking and entering for Alexis Carrimbacus. From the start of the investigation, the police suspected a heinous crime against a background of anti-Semitism. In the course of the investigations, this anti-Semitism will be tinged with Islamism when we learn that Yacine Mahoub was punished during a previous detention for apology for terrorism, and in particular for having praised the Kouachi brothers, perpetrators of the January 2015 attacks, and will prove to be a compulsive addict to anti-Semitic websites and a staunch defender of Hamas. He also allegedly shouted "Allah Akbar" during the assassination of Mireille Knoll.
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Between the two men the theme of "Jewish money" comes back in a loop. "I was rather serene vis-à-vis the justice, which, in this case, did not have a state of mind media and which normally did its work", affirmed, Monday, Me Gilles- William Goldnadel, the lawyer for the victim's family.
A difficult investigation
“Without a doubt, the Sarah Halimi case served as a model. We are facing a heinous crime committed against an old lady and, since she is Jewish, it was even better for her murderers. At the start of the investigation, we had no preconceived idea, " says Gilles-William Goldnadel. “So much so that Mireille Knoll's sons were very reluctant to the idea of a demonstration to testify to the horror of the facts. We wanted it open to everyone. It was undoubtedly an opportunity for political and media awareness. Mireille Knoll has become everyone's grandmother, ” continues the lawyer, who keeps the poignant memory of the reconstruction in a tiny and modest apartment decorated with small trinkets, far from the splendor fantasized by his murderers.
None of the two men's statements during the proceedings were consistent on any of the key points.
The Paris parquetOnly regret of the lawyer: the leniency shown by the examining magistrates vis-à-vis the mother of Yacine Mihoub. "The latter removed evidence, in this case the murder weapons, from the knives which she cleaned, but she also broke her judicial control by conversing with her son during his preventive detention in order to agree on the version of the facts, ”he explains.
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What worsen the difficulty of the investigation, since the body was burned and that "none of the statements of the two men during the procedure was consistent on any of the key points", said the prosecution in its closing statement. At the start of the investigation, the only fact to have been recognized by the suspects was their presence at Mireille Knoll's place at the time of her death.
