Ilan Halimi was murdered in 2006 because he was a Jew in Paris.
Ilan Halimi thought he was going out on a date.
Ilan was lured to his death by a woman he had met in his telephone store in 2006. They met up late on the night of January 20, 2006, in one of Paris’s southern suburbs, Bagneux.
She was what is called a “honey pot.” She lured Ilan from his home and into the hands of a group of local radical Islamists called “The Barbarians.” They targeted him because he was a Jew. The Barbarians had connections with Hamas. They kept him naked and tied up for weeks. They tortured him and invited their friends and family over to torture him. They cut him and burned him with cigarettes and in the end stabbed him in the neck, poured flammable liquid on him, set him on fire, and pushed him from a train.
Ilan Halimi died that day.
The Barbarians, in order to convince Halimi’s parents their son had been kidnapped, borrowed a trick from Islamist kidnappers who abduct Westerners in the Middle East: They sent a picture of the young man being threatened by a gun and holding a newspaper to prove the date and time.
In May 2009, two years after his murder, Choc Magazine published a new photo of Ilan.
John Rosenthal described the cover: The magazine shows a man whose head has been wrapped in duct tape. His face is completely covered except for a small space that has been left for his nose. The nose is bloodied. The man’s hands are bound in front of him, likewise with tape. A key chain has been hung on his fingers: perhaps to help identify him or perhaps as a subtle threat to his family or friends. The man is seated in front of an orange and purple drape, evidently to hide his surroundings. A copy of the Parisian daily Le Parisien has been propped up on his arms in front of his chest, thus indicating the date. Emerging from off frame, a gloved-hand holds a gun pressed against the man’s temple.
Ilan was murdered by Islamists.
This week Ilan Halimi’s memorial was smashed in suburban Paris.
Forward.com reported:
A memorial plaque honoring Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man who was kidnapped and tortured to death nearly a decade ago, was vandalized in suburban Paris.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Sunday that the plaque in Bagneux was damaged and an investigation was launched, The Associated Press reported. The plaque was erected in 2011, the French news agency AFP reported.
“It’s outrageous, unacceptable, I am extremely shocked,” the southern Paris suburb’s mayor, Marie-Helene Amiable, told AFP. She called the plaque “a powerful symbol for our town.”
The vandalism was discovered in the wake of an attack Friday on two Jewish men in their early 20s by a pro-Palestinian gang of about 40 people.
The attack took place on the same street, Voltaire Boulevard in Paris’ 11 arrondissement, or district, from where Halimi was abducted. Many Jewish businesses are located there.
A new film “24 Days” on the the anti-Semitic murder of Ilan Halimi is now available on iTunes.
