“If justice is perverted and murder excused due to drug addiction, this sets a precedent for every drunk driver to be similarly so acquitted.”

Paris, 25 May 2019 

Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, expressed to French Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet, that he was “sickened at the reopened ruling of the investigating magistrate in the 65 year old Sarah Halimi case, to treat her self-confessed murderer as ‘mentally unfit to stand trial due to his marijuana intoxication’.”

“… It is just over a week since our congratulatory letter, regarding the 16 May police ‘reconstruction’ of the murder of 85 year old Holocaust survivor, Mireille Knoll. We had viewed this as a major step forward in the case.”

Samuels argued, “Both crimes were irrefutably antisemitic, violently committed by their respective neighbours, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the killing,”... adding, “If justice is perverted and murder excused due to drug addiction, this sets a precedent for every drunk driver to be similarly acquitted.”

“Such a judgment not only denies justice to the victims’ families. It also encourages further antisemitic violence. We call for a full investigation into an absurd judicial procedure that scoffs at the values of the Republic,” concluded Samuels.