There will indeed be a trial for anti-Semitic crime in the Mireille Knoll case. Thus decided the examining magistrates, responsible for elucidating the murder of this Jewish octogenarian in Paris in March 2018, in their indictment order notified this Monday to the parties.
According to concordant sources, the magistrates referred the two suspects, who lay claim to each other responsible for the crime, to the Paris Assize Court, for "intentional homicide" aggravated by two circumstances. The first was that Mireille Knoll, who had Parkinson's disease, was a "vulnerable person". And the second because of the religion of the victim - the old lady was a survivor of the Vél d'Hiv roundup.
The judges thus follow the requisitions of the Paris prosecutor's office. By retaining the aggravating circumstance of vulnerability at the very end of the investigation, they ensure that the penalty incurred by the accused will be the highest, even in the event of an anti-Semitic motive being challenged during the proceedings before the Assize Court.
Throughout the two years of investigation, Yacine Mihoub, neighbor of Mireille Knoll, and Alex Carrimbacus, friend of the first, denied each other the authorship of the fatal stab wounds. One accuses the other of having killed the old lady during a burglary that went wrong. The other evokes a stroke of blood of his accomplice following a dispute with the octogenarian. The facts took place behind closed doors at the HLM in the victim's 11th arrondissement, without witnesses. The investigation of the 2nd DPJ did not allow them to decide between them - the murder weapon was not found - but the judges therefore sent them back to back.
"French justice behaved in a normal and fair manner"
Yacine Mihoub, 30, and Alex Carrimbacus, 24, both disputed that the murder may have been linked to the victim's confession. But their statements have been weakened by their various reversals or "their propensity to lie", as pointed out by the prosecution in its requisitions. Investigations did not support an anti-Semitic background in one or the other. However, the prosecution notes that Carrimbacus said that his partner had shouted "Allah Akbar" and discussed the condition of the Jews with the old lady before the murder. He himself would have inquired about the victim's fortune before going to his apartment, at the invitation of Mihoub.
"I am delighted to see the analysis of the prosecution in substance shared by the examining magistrates and that nothing now stands in the way of the referral of the two murderers to the Assize Court, reacts Gilles-William Goldnadel, lawyer for the Knoll family. French justice behaved as it should behave, in a normal and fair manner, towards everyone. We always thought that Mireille Knoll died because she was too old to defend herself and because she inspired a particular detestation. "