A postcard campaign calling for justice for Sarah Halimi addressed to French President Emmanuel Macron. Photo: courtesy of Israelite Consistoire of Haut-Rhin

JNS.org – The family of Sarah Halimi, a Jewish woman murdered four years ago in Paris, has filed a criminal complaint in Israel against the perpetrator, who was found unfit for trial in France due to drug consumption, Ynet reported on Tuesday.

Invoking a law allowing Israeli citizens to file complaints in Israel about antisemitic crimes committed abroad, lawyers Mordechai Tzivin and Gilles-William Goldnadel, representing the Halimi family, are demanding that the perpetrator be tried in the Jewish state.

This is the first time the law has been invoked, according to Ynet.

Halimi, 65, was killed in 2017 by 27-year-old Kobili Traoré, her Muslim neighbor, who beat her up and threw her out of the window of her apartment while shouting “Allahu Akbar” [“God is great” in Arabic].

The French Court Cassation’s Supreme Court of Appeals in April upheld a 2019 ruling by a lower tribunal that Traoré, an immigrant from Mali with French citizenship, was not responsible for his actions at the time of the killing due to a delusional state caused by heavy cannabis consumption. He currently resides in a psychiatric facility.

In the wake of the ruling, Jewish communities in Paris, New York, London and Tel Aviv staged mass demonstrations in April to demand that Traoré be prosecuted. An online rally with the same purpose was held in May as well with some 40,000 participants, including leaders from France and Canada.