Second Trial of "Gang of Barbarians" Ends in Paris

Nidra Poller

The verdict in the appeals trial of 17 members of the Gang of Barbarians, guilty in diverse degrees of luring, kidnapping, and torturing Ilan Halimi, was announced this Friday evening. Ilan Halimi’s mother, sisters, and brother-in-law, who are observant Jews, could not be in court to hear the verdict handed down two hours after the beginning of shabat.. The verdict in the lower court trial had been rendered at 10 PM on Friday July 13, 2009.

Jail terms were increased for seven of the seventeen defendants; the other ten were unchanged. The defense lawyers were exasperated. “All of this for nothing!” If it were nothing more than a few years added to the prison terms of seven defendants, one might be tempted to agree that it was not worth two and a half months of hearings at great expense of time, effort, and public funds. The plaintiffs’ lawyers, on the contrary, were deeply satisfied. Why? This time, they say, the presiding judge organized the hearings in such a way that the full weight of the ordeal in all its horror was rendered. The mastermind Youssouf Fofana, who called himself the “Brain of the Barbarians,” was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Ilan Halimi, with aggravating circumstances of anti-Semitism. After the public prosecutor appealed the lower court verdict for the seventeen defendants, Fofana interjected an appeal on his own behalf. And then withdrew it. He was expected to appear in court, however, as a witness. But he created so many disturbances in the first days of hearings that the judge refrained from summoning him thereafter. In the absence of Fofana, whose unrepentant vice had dominated the first trial, the vices of the other defendants were, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs, brought to light.

If, as the defense lawyers would have us believe, the aim of the retrial was to radically increase the severity of the punishment, the whole operation could be seen as futile. The trial, once more, was held behind closed doors—without any media presence-- on the grounds that two of the defendants were under eighteen when the crime was committed. Elsa Vigoureux, who writes a blog for Le Nouvel Observateur weekly, covered the lower court trial in great detail… from one side. Her blog was based almost exclusively on information slipped to her from defense lawyers. She told me, in a private conversation, that she also had the file of the investigation (which is supposed to be made available to a very limited number of people involved in the case).

This time, lawyers for the plaintiffs decided to inform certain journalists, primarily from a Jewish radio station, Radio J. And Ms. Vigoureux showed far less interest in the case. Could we say that the lower court trial was a smokescreen and the appeals trial a sincere attempt to render justice based on a thorough examination of the facts and the personalities involved, revealing the extent of their cruelty and the twisted nature of their minds? The picture that emerges this time is consistent with the horrors endured by Ilan Halimi, held prisoner for 24 days in a makeshift death camp. His jailors and tormentors could not hide, this time, behind a sociological screen… wayward youths manipulated by a monster. The monstrosity of each and every one came to light.

Behind closed doors. The next step is to make those truths public, with the help of those who defended the victims of the Gang of Barbarians.