The investigation into the death on May 17 in Lyon of an octogenarian, probably pushed into the void by his neighbor, was widened this Friday to determine whether the facts are of an anti-Semitic nature, announced the prosecutor of Lyon, Nicholas Jacquet.
“Following elements collected on social networks and which have just been brought to the attention of the prosecution, the latter has decided to extend the referral to the investigating judges to the aggravating circumstance of an act committed for reasons of the victim's belonging to a specific ethnic group, nation, race or religion,” the prosecutor said.
On the evening of May 17, the body of the 89-year-old man was discovered lifeless, directly above his building in the 9th arrondissement of Lyon.
His 51-year-old neighbour, whom he frequented regularly, is suspected of having pushed the old man from the 17th floor after an argument.
He was charged and remanded in custody.
"A judicial investigation had initially been opened on the count of intentional homicide", the first investigations having not led "to retain an anti-Semitic character in the passage to the act", recalled Nicolas Jacquet, even if from the opening of the procedure "no investigation hypothesis was ruled out".
"The judicial investigation is therefore now continuing on the count of intentional homicide on the grounds of the victim's belonging to a specific ethnic group, nation, race or religion," he added.
Similarities with the Sarah Halimi case
The National Office for Vigilance against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA) had already announced in a press release on Sunday its intention to become a civil party in this case.
"The BNVCA cannot resolve itself in a context of rising anti-Semitism that an act of such barbarism is not studied with the required attention, in particular that of the context in which the neighbor was evolving", wrote the association, recalling the “similarity” of this case with that of Sarah Halimi, a Jewish sexagenarian killed and defenestrated in 2017 in Paris.
His murderer had been considered criminally irresponsible.
Gilles-William Goldnadel, lawyer and columnist at Le Figaro and on CNews, a channel that the presumed murderer of the octogenarian from Lyon regularly commented on Twitter, said on Wednesday on the social network that the suspect had previously "remind him (his) origins".
I learn that the suspect Rachid Kheniche reminded me of my origins in the manner of the Islamists on November 25, 2020. There is no longer any question of us doing the unbalanced trick again.
Now is the time that the anti-Semitic truth is no longer hidden.
I won't let go.
https://t.co/dPCJwnmKQH
— G-William Goldnadel (@GWGoldnadel) May 25, 2022
“It is no longer a question of repeating the stroke of the unbalanced.
Now is the time that the anti-Semitic truth is no longer hidden,” he said.
