PARIS: A Lebanese-Canadian academic went on trial in Paris on Monday over the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in the city — the first deadly attack against a Jewish target on French soil since World War II.
Western Europe’s largest Jewish community has been targeted several times since then.
Here is a list of deadly attacks on the community over the past half a century:
March 2018: Holocaust survivor slain
On March 23, 2018, an 85-year-old French Jewish woman and Holocaust survivor, Mireille Knoll, is stabbed 11 times and her body partly burned by a neighbour’s son looking for valuables.
In 2021, Yacine Mihoub is convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment for a crime that the court says was fuelled by anti-Semitism.
April 2017: Thrown out of window
On April 4, 2017 a 65-year-old French Orthodox Jewish woman, Sarah Halimi, is thrown out of the window of her Paris apartment by a neighbour shouting “Allahu akbar” (”God is greatest” in Arabic).
France’s highest court rules in 2021 that her death was motivated by anti-Semitism but says that the killer, Kobili Traore, is not criminally responsible after succumbing to a drug-induced “delirious fit”.
January 2015: Hostage crisis
On January 9, 2015, an Islamist gunman kills four people and critically injures four others in a hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris before being shot dead by police.
Amedy Coulibaly, 32, a friend of the two Kouachi brothers who had massacred cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo magazine two days earlier, also killed a policewoman.
March 2012: Schoolchildren killed
On March 19, 2012, an Islamist gunman bursts into a Jewish school in the southwestern French city of Toulouse, shooting dead three children and a teacher.
Mohamed Merah, who also shot dead three soldiers in two other attacks, is killed on March 22 in a shootout with police.
January 2006: Tortured to death
On January 20, 2006, a 23-year-old Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, is kidnapped by a gang of youths, and tortured in a housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux. Found on February 13, he dies before reaching hospital.
The head of the gang, Youssouf Fofana, is sentenced to life in prison.
August 1982: Jewish restaurant hit
On August 9, 1982, five armed men open fire and throw grenades at a Jewish restaurant in rue des Rosiers in central Paris, killing six people and injuring 22.
The crime is never solved.
October 1980: Synagogue bombing
On October 3, a bomb hidden in a motorbike bag explodes outside a synagogue in central Paris during prayers, killing four and injuring 46.
Lebanese-Canadian academic Hassan Diab goes on trial in absentia on April 3, 2023, four decades after the attack in which he has always denied any involvement. – AFP
