Yacine Mihoub, sentenced to life imprisonment for the anti-Semitic murder of Mireille Knoll in 2018, is appealing the judgment.
The 32-year-old man, who was found guilty by the Paris Assize Court last week, had repeatedly challenged his responsibility for the death of the old lady during her trial.
His lawyer, Me Charles Consigny, said to appeal the court decision on Monday evening, confirming information from RTL.
At first instance, on November 10, the Assize Court concluded that Yacine Mihoub had killed Mireille Knoll, aged 85, with eleven stab wounds.
The old lady, who escaped the Vel D'hiv roundup in 1942, was a neighbor of his mother's apartment building and he had a special relationship with her since he was a child.
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The court, which attached his sentence to a period of safety of twenty-two years, considered that the facts had taken place in a "global anti-Semitic context" and that "the villainous character was fueled by a hatred because of belonging ”of the victim to the“ Jewish religion ”and by“ beliefs that wealth may be concealed ”in the accommodation of the victim.
Mihoub's co-accused, Alex Carrimbacus, 25, was cleared of the murder but sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment with a two-thirds safety sentence for aggravated theft from the victim.
The anti-Semitic character was also retained for him, as well as the aggravating circumstance of the vulnerability of Mireille Knoll, very weakened by Parkinson's disease.
Yacine Mihoub's mother, Zoulikha Khellaf, was sentenced to three years in prison, including one year at home under electronic surveillance.
She was found guilty of destroying objects and cleaning up the murder weapon.