Crif - Sarah Halimi: Open letter to the Paris Court of Appeal General Attorney at the Paris Court of Appeal

The Paris Court of Appeal announced on December 19, 2019 that the murderer of Sarah Halimi was not criminally responsible. Following this decision, the president of Crif, Francis Kalifat, wrote an open letter to the Paris Court of Appeal General Attorney.

Paris, December 21st, 2019

"Madam General Attorney,

The Public Prosecutor's Office requests in the Sarah Halimi case leave me speechless. How can the Public Prosecutor's Office be in contradiction with the Paris Prosecutor when throughout the procedure you appeared to be in complete agreement with him?

All psychological experts agree not to recognize any psychiatric antecedent to the presumed murderer, who does not suffer today from any disorder. The three expert opinions conclude "an acute delusional puff caused by the voluntary massive consumption of cannabis". How then can your Public Prosecutor's Office take requisitions concluding with the total abolition of the discernment of the presumed murderer?

Does your Prosecutor's Office wish to install a new case law in our country where cannabis would be an excusing factor for an anti-Semitic murder, when it is an aggravating factor for all other crimes?

Perhaps – but I cannot bring myself to believe it – did your Public Prosecutor's Office want to prevent the trial of the murderer of Sarah Halimi from also being the trial of Islamist anti-Semitism which kills in France?

The indictment would have been to let a Criminal court and a popular Jury settle this debate of psychiatric experts?

Is there in our country only law and no justice?

Those questions haunt me in this case of Sarah Halimi.

Know, Madam Prosecutor General that beyond my own misunderstanding, it is all French Jews who are plunged into a state of collective dismay and who now know that it is possible in our country, to torture and kill Jews of cold blood without being judged. It is not to retain the lessons of history that to consent to it.

My last word will be for the children and the family of Sarah Halimi who are, by this decision, deprived of the trial of the murderer of their mother, so essential to complete their mourning and to regain the serenity to which they are entitled.

Please accept, Madam Prosecutor General, the expression of my interrogative greetings".

Francis Kalifat, President of Crif