The murder of an elderly Jewish woman in\u00a0Paris\u00a0last year has been ruled an anti-Semitic attack by a judge, overturning the authorities\u2019 earlier refusal to treat it as a hate crime.<\/p>\n
After an outcry by Jewish groups and legal action by her family, the judge accepted prosecutors\u2019 requests for the killing to be reclassified as religiously motivated instead of simply murder.<\/p>\n
Kobili Traore, 28, is accused of murdering his neighbour Lucette Attal-Halimi, 65, an Orthodox Jewish woman known by her Hebrew name, Sarah Halimi, after breaking into her council flat in eastern\u00a0Paris on the night of April 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Traore, who is of Malian descent, allegedly recited verses from the Koran while beating Ms Halimi before throwing her out of a third-floor window and shouting: \u201cI\u2019ve killed the Shaitan [devil in Arabic].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jewish groups had accused French authorities of attempting to cover up the anti-semitic nature of the crime to avoid inflaming tension that could have helped Marine Le Pen during last year\u2019s election campaign. Her anti-immigrant Front National party was doing well in the polls and she\u00a0faced Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the presidential election in May.<\/p>\n
After Traore\u2019s arrest, he told investigators he had consumed large amounts of cannabis and had been possessed by \u201cexternal\u201d or \u201cdevilish\u201d forces.<\/p>\n
Psychiatrists said he had still been responsible for his actions, which were \u201cnot incompatible with an anti-Semitic dimension\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The charge has now been amended to \u201cmurder with anti-Semitism as an aggravating factor\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, visited France in July, President Macron called for the full facts to be be known.<\/p>\n
Ms Halimi\u2019s death raised concern about anti-Semitism in working-class French neighbourhoods where Jews and Arabs live side by side.<\/p>\n
It revived memories of the 2006 killing of Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Jewish shop assistant, not a relative despite having the same surname.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thousands of French Jews have emigrated in recent years amid a rise in anti-Semitic attacks.\u00a0 Half a million Jews live in France \u2014 the world\u2019s third largest Jewish community after the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n