French-Jewish Holocaust survivor found burned, stabbed to death in Paris apartment

The stabbed body of a French-Jewish Holocaust survivor was found in a burned Paris apartment. Security group says “everything suggests” it was an anti-Semitic crime.

By: The Algemeiner

An 85-year-old French-Jewish Holocaust survivor was found dead on Friday in an incinerated apartment in Paris, according to reports.

The incident, the Le Parisien newspaper said, took place at the woman’s home on Avenue Philippe Auguste in the French capital’s 11th arrondissement.

A French-Jewish communal security organization, the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism (BNVCA), said five fires had been set at the apartment, and the victim — named as “Mireille K.” — was also stabbed 11 times.

Police are investigating the case, and suicide has been ruled out, Le Parisien reported.

The BNVCA said a suspect was being questioned by police.

The victim had reportedly filed police complaints against a local resident who had threatened to burn her.

The BNVCA called for authorities to find and bring the perpetrator to justice, and also determine whether it was an antisemitic crime, “as everything suggests.”

Last year, the French-Jewish community was shaken by the murder in Paris of 65-year-old pensioner Sarah Halimi. Halimi was beaten in her apartment, also in the 11th arrondissement, by an Islamist assailant and thrown from a third-floor window.

Last month, a French court ruled that the Halimi case would be prosecuted as an antisemitic hate crime.

Sarah Halimi