Sarah Halimi or the scandalous French silence, by Sarah Cattan

I'm back to talk to you about Sarah. More than 7 months since this doctor was assassinated in the middle of Paris. Because she was Jewish. Only because she was Jewish. Judicial time, you will retort...

I'm back to talk to you about Sarah. More than 7 months since this doctor was assassinated in the middle of Paris. Because she was Jewish. Only because she was Jewish.

Judicial time, you will retort. As it is true that this notion should be the answer to everything, it which gave rise to debates both within the institution and outside it. Debates which fell within the framework of a more general reflection on the quality and efficiency of justice. who approached the delays of justice, this recurring theme which the magistrates seized upon from the beginning of the XNUMXth century, a public prosecutor then speaking of contain the time of criminal justice within the reasonable time, and this notion of reasonable delay now referring to Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to promptness now being clearly recognized as a human right.

I will spare you the average duration of the investigation, all cases completed, before the assize courts of first instance, this average time between the offense and the judgment being more than 50 months: I know your arguments, you, lawyers, who are going to talk to me length of the police investigation phase, complexity of the case, need for sufficient time to elapse between the summons and the hearing for the party summoned to prepare their defense, all these parameters that make the measurement of the reasonable is ultimately very relative.

I also know that people will oppose me that in penal matters, it can be of good justice to wait for the passions to subside after a dramatic event. And often we add the need for media pressure to subside.

But what ? Did you hear them, you, the so-called media pressures, did you hear them in the case the pressure from the street who would have shouted that it was abnormal that a woman in 2017 could have been killed in full Paris because she was Jewish, and only because she was Jewish.

I want to question the investigating judge in charge of the Sarah Halimi case here. Ask her what she makes of the distinction established by the European Court of Human Rights with regard to the reasonable delay depending on the type of business.

Is it illegitimate to interrogate him: Does the Judge deal with the files according to their order of arrival or according to their degree of urgency. I refer to Mireille Delmas-Marty's formula, the rhythmology of the criminal procedure. I am told that your office, Madam Judge, is to ensure respect for the reasonable time. But I am told that the powers granted to you give you control over the course of the procedure and therefore its duration, that you, Madam, influence the pace of the trial by having the sole power to impose time limits for the production of exhibits or for the filing of conclusions.

Is it permissible to wonder what use you make of these powers in the Sarah Halimi file. To wonder if this extraordinary time is due to your strategy, your temperament, your convictions. If it would be linked to the relationship you would have with the other actors in the trial. Lawyers for example. Is it forbidden to ask questions about the relationship between the Public Prosecutor and the police? On what more the devil could require Traoré's lawyer as an act or research that would be necessary for the manifestation of the truth.

Madam Judge, what about the obligation already mentioned in 1823 by Advocate General Lébé to allocate good and prompt justice. In the list drawn up by the CEPEJ[1], included, among other criteria, in addition to measures against delaying maneuvers, the motivation of magistrates. What ? Could it be imagined that your motivation is in question. You, to whom the Public Prosecutor's Office asked on Wednesday, September 20, in view of the psychiatric expertise rendered at the beginning of September and the first elements of the rogatory commission submitted by the investigators, to retain the anti-Semitic character of the assassination.

We are November 11 and this aggravating circumstance is still not official. Sarah's apartment is sealed. One of the lawyers tells me that no member of Sarah's family lives in France anymore. From his brother to his 3 children: France let the Halimi family go. And we should find it normal that a Jewish family left their country.

All the lawyers in charge here have mentioned, from the beginning, special relationships between them and you. All of them, without exception, described to us an uninviting magistrate. Who would drag their feet. Who seemed to them to put a lot of ill will into all this. All spoke of this feeling of disturbing her when by chance they wanted to meet her. This one claiming she didn't greet them. That she blamed them to open it up too much in the media. This other denouncing a behavior at least character.

This one explaining, for example, that she had summoned the 3 children to November 30 and decided on a second date for them to attend the reconstruction of the facts. Two round trips? Lod-Paris-Lod? Pleasure trip. These arbitrary decisions led the lawyer to demand hard as iron that the two summonses take place at the same time and that his clients be avoided two trips, a standoff being engaged with this judge who affirms loud and clear thatshe won't send back.

Besides those who to this day still ignore what will forever be called the Sarah Halimi case, this woman, a doctor, getting out of bed, lynched then defenestrated, all to the rhythm of the suras recited by the assassin and almost live, in the presence of the residents of the residence and especially the 28 police officers who rushed to the scene, he there are still those who don't believe in it. So much was she the object of a shattering silence. So much for an extraordinary affair the media reserved a definitively culpable treatment. Silencing her. And for some of them, providing the minimum service. Talking and then moving on. And then even talking about it, passing quickly over the facts and reviving the indecent debate: had he killed her because she was Jewish? We wanted proof. We wanted to check. It was perhaps one more imbalance. Who under the influence of drugs will defend you a woman. And bad luck it fell on Sarah Halimi. And height of chance he was Muslim and frequented here and there the Jean-Pierre Timbaud mosque.

Never forget :

April 4: arrest of the assassin, interned in view of his psychiatric condition deemed incompatible with police custody. Request for a psychiatric expertise from Daniel Zaguri.

May 22: a civil party requests recognition of the aggravating circumstance of an anti-Semitic nature, but also of kidnapping, acts of torture and barbarism.

July 10: hearing of the suspect by the investigating judge.

July 12: indictment of the individual for intentional homicide and forcible confinement. Placement under mandate of deposit. Lawyers learning this by chance.

July 16: Ceremony to commemorate the Vél d'Hiv roundup: a President who asks the courts to shed full light on this crime despite the denials of the alleged murderer.

August 29: an expert who requests a postponement to render his expertise.

September 4: rendering of the expert report: Despite the indisputable reality of the alienating mental disorder, the abolition of discernment cannot be retained because of the conscious and voluntary regular intake of cannabis in very large quantities. The fact that she, the victim, was Jewish immediately demonized her and amplified the delusional experience, focused on her person the diabolical principle that had to be fought and provoked the barbaric surge of which she was the unfortunate victim. In other words, the crime of Kobili Traoré is a delusional and anti-Semitic act.

September 20: in view of the said expertise, a prosecution asks the judge in charge of the investigation that the anti-Semitic character be retained in this case.

Today is November 11. The national press, again this morning, is asking the question of the resurgence of anti-Semitism in France. But it remains unanswered, the open letter that Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine sent on May 25[2] to Gérard Collomb, denouncing this unworthy France where it had again become possible to assassinate Jews without our compatriots being unduly moved by it and castigating the deliquescent atmosphere which reigned in the country of Dieudonné. It remains a dead letter, denunciation by Gilles-William Goldnadel[3], public indifference. We quickly forgot them, the question posed by the Times of London, who headlined that the affair was smothered because of the upcoming legislative elections, and that of Frédérique Ries, this Belgian Member of the European Parliament, who questioned the 1^er June chilling silence French authorities. Remained unanswered, the tribune of Arnaud Benedetti, who, analyzing the media silence, denounced as suspect anything that could come to disturb the story of an enchanted world, notwithstanding its sometimes monstrous obviousness, and that of the editorialist Gérard Leclerc on Catholic radio Notre-Dame.

Would you therefore consider it good form to choose, like the former high magistrate Philippe Bilger, to abstain, no matter how horrible murder or even assassination, abstain in case the suspect in question could be declared criminally irresponsible, or will you also speak, like a Claude Askolovitch[4], this murdered old lady who panicked the Jewish community. Will you agree to still know nothing, 7 months later, of the dysfunction that operated that night within our police force. Do you all find it normal that no debate takes hold of the subject anymore? That this press capable of the worst and which did not hesitate to compromise itself by stealing two photos within the Tribunal, this press so quick to infringe it, the required silence, be silent, considering that no doubt it had done so , the job, and now is shamefully satisfied, too, with the reasonable delay.

[1] M. Fabri, Ph. Langbroek, 2003
[2] Atlantic.
[3] Figaro. 22 may 2017.
[4] Slate. 7 April 2017.

Sarah Cattan

Source: Sarah Halimi or the scandalous French silence, by Sarah Cattan | Jewish Tribune