March 06, 2006
The prime suspect in the abduction, torture and slaying of Frenchman Ilan Halimi has insisted that money, not anti-Semitism, was the motive in the crime, according to investigators. But the statements made by Youssouf Fofana, a 25-year-old French Muslim, after his extradition Saturday from Ivory Coast, did little to dispel a widespread perception in France that he was part of a gang that targeted the victim because he was Jewish. Fofana and other suspected members of the gang who allegedly abducted Halimi, a 23-year-old cell phone salesman, in Paris in January are under investigation for kidnapping and murder aggravated by anti-Semitism.
Much of France's 600,000-strong Jewish community and many members of the news media see the crime as the worst example yet of what they believe to be a rising trend of anti-Jewish sentiment in France, particularly among its five million Muslims whose families mostly hail from west and north Africa.
