There was widespread astonishment after French prosecutors dropped murder charges against the Jewish teacher’s killer Kobili Traoré
December 4, 2019 18:57
ByShirli Sitbon, Shirli Sitbon Paris
One of the lawyers representing the family of Sarah Halimi, the Jewish kindergarten director who was beaten and thrown off her Paris balcony, has said he believes her killer will be put on trial.
Prosecutors dropped murder charges last week against Kobili Traoré, who admitted breaking into her neighbour’s flat and killing her on April 4 2017, after psychiatrists gave conflicting reports about Traoré’s mental state. He had been smoking cannabis on the night of the murder.
A Paris appeals chamber will rule later this month on whether he should trial for the killing, irrespective of the prosecutors’ decision.
Gilles William Goldnadel, who represents Sarah Halimi’s family, said he believed they will opt for a trial.
“I’m overall optimistic,” he told the JC, “because France’s Supreme Court has issued a ruling saying that when psychiatric experts are divided over the mental state the suspect was in when committing his crime, a trial must be held so a jury can decide if he’s responsible or not.
“I believe that the court will not rule against its own decisions.”
The appeals chamber heard last week that Traoré beat Ms Halimi for at least 20 minutes and threw her out of her balcony while shouting “Allahu Akbar” and “I have killed the sheitan” — Satan in Arabic.
But experts are divided over whether he can be held responsible for the killing because they believe he suffered from psychosis after smoking a large amount of cannabis.
Daniel Zagury, a psychiatrist and one of France’s leading court-appointed experts, said Traoré could be tried because his consciousness was merely altered.
But two separate panels of psychiatric experts said Traoré bore no responsibility because he was unaware of his actions during the killing, except for some moments of lucidity.
However, both Dr Zagury and the panels diagnosed the killer as mentally sane and doctors have been giving him minimal treatment.
Sarah Halimi’s family lawyers hope that jurisprudence will work in their favour, pointing to a similar murder case from March 2012 in which psychiatrists were divided over the mental state of a man who had killed his wife in eastern France.
An appeals chamber had ruled the man should be tried because, where there is doubt over a suspect’s mental state, it is up to a jury to decide if he is guilty or not. France’s Supreme Court upheld that ruling.
The Halimi family suffered a setback last week when the Appeals Court prosecutor dropped murder charges against Traoré, saying he should be admitted to a psychiatric hospital instead. It contradicted a lower court’s prosecutor who had called for a trial.
“In all of my career I have never seen such a division within the prosecution,” Mr Goldnadel said.
Muriel Ouaknine-Melki, a lawyer representing Halimi’s brother in the case, said she believed Traoré was fully responsible and aware of his actions.
“He wasn’t unconscious or semi-unconscious but fully aware of what he was doing,” she said.
“The prosecution’s reversal in the case is extremely rare and it shows that political pressure has been applied.”
Halimi family lawyers have accused murder investigators of mishandling the case. They believe Traoré, who has 20 previous convictions for drug trafficking and violent acts, is an Islamist radical who deliberately targeted the victim, an Orthodox Jew.
In court Traoré said that before the killing he had spent hours in one of Paris’s most radical mosques, Mosquée Omar.
The Appeals Court will issue its ruling on December 19.
