PARIS (Reuters) - French police are investigating whether the death of an elderly Jewish woman stabbed and burnt to death in her Paris apartment last week was an anti-Semitic murder, a judicial source said on Monday.

Mirelle Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor, was found dead on Friday inside the blackened remains of her apartment, which police suspect was set ablaze after she was attacked.

Two suspects have been detained but have not yet been charged.

The investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office is trying to establish whether it was a killing “motivated by the real or supposed adherence to a religion”, the source said.

France’s chief rabbi described Knoll’s death as a “horror”. Jewish leaders have called for a march in her memory.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who is visiting Israel, said the theory that Knoll’s death was anti-Semitic was plausible.

“It reminds us of the fundamental and permanent side of this battle (against anti-Semitism),” he said, speaking alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

As a child in Paris, Knoll managed to evade the round-up of Jews during World War Two, Paris lawmaker Meyer Habib said.

Thousands of Jews were brought to the Velodrome d’Hiver cycling track in 1942 and sent on to Nazi death camps.

France is home to western Europe’s biggest Jewish population and many in the 400,000-strong community have complained for years of a rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes.

In 2015, vandals desecrated 250 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in eastern France days after four Jews were killed in an attack on a kosher grocery in Paris.

Knoll’s killing took place a year to the day after the murder of Sarah Halimi-Attal, a 65-year-old whose death prosecutors believe was anti-Semitic.

“The horror of the crime and the violence of the executioners are identical and reflect the negation of the human face,” Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia said in a tweet.</s>A “Mysterious fire.” That is the term used by the French newspaper Le Parisien, which was the first to tell about the story, to describe the murder of an 85 year-old Holocaust survivor, found dead on Friday night in her apartment in Paris. Because French mainstream media were focused on the hostage situation in Trèbes, a terrorist attack that resulted in four casualties, news of the murder was only revealed today.

While the investigation has just started, Le Parisien reports that the old lady, whose name has not yet been revealed, had previously complained to the police about someone in her neighborhood who threatened several times to “set her on fire.” Her body was stabbed eleven times, while the police has confirmed five fire sources, which suggests the fire was caused as a result of an arson.

Although no evidence yet exists to suggest that the woman’s religion motivated the murderer, the attack comes a year after the murder of another older Jewish woman, Sarah Halimi, a 65 year-old retiree who was stabbed to death a few blocks away from Friday’s victim. Halimi’s murder not only shook the Jewish community to the core, but sparked anger amongst French Jews, as the news was largely under-reported by the press, having happened during the Presidential elections last year.

Noémie Halioua, a French journalist for Actualité Juive and author of the newly released book Sarah Halimi’s Case, published by Cerf Books, said there were similarities between the two attacks. “You can clearly see there is a repetition of the tragic,” she said. “There are no measures to take things seriously and to eradicate the evil. As a matter of fact, the story repeats itself and there is no awareness, whether on Trèbes or this old lady. The connection is jihadism. And yet, no decisions have been taken”.

The 85-year-old woman’s body was found by firemen at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, in the busy 11th arrondissement in downtown Paris, in the Philippe August area. Reached by the French media France Info, a police source said that the case was investigated as a murder, and that the investigation will be handled by the federal police’s second district. As of Sunday afternoon, an individual born in 1989 was placed in custody the day after the arson for this specific case, sources familair with the investigation confirmed.

While the Parisien says that the victim went to the police station several times to alert the authorities about death threats she had recieved, the suspect was reportedly spotted at her flat.

As the French law stipulates, ongoing investigations usually take a few days to unfold and it will take a few days for the French police to release a report to fill in with more details about the crime and evaluate on whether the murderer had antisemitic motivations.

Annabelle Azadé is a journalist based in Paris. She has reported from Bangkok, New York, Tel Aviv, and London.</s>Police suspect the murder of a Holocaust survivor in France was an anti-semitic hate crime, it has been confirmed.

Mireile Knoll, 85, was found dead with 11 stab wounds on Friday in her Paris apartment, which had also been set on fire.

On Tuesday a judge told two men arrested in connection with the crime that they are suspected of murder motivated by the victim’s “real or supposed adherence to a religion”.

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, has called on residents of the city to join her on a silent march on Wednesday in Knoll’s memory.

Knoll’s son, Daniel, told an Israeli TV programme that one of the suspects was his mother’s long-time neighbour who had recently come out of prison for a sex offence.

The suspect spent Friday at her the 85-year-old’s apartment sharing a drink, her son said.</s>“Assuredly, the evil man will not escape, But the offspring of the righteous will be safe.” Proverbs 11:21 (The Israel Bible™)

French police discovered the charred body of a Holocaust survivor covered with stab wounds after a fire broke out in her Paris apartment on Friday. The local Jewish community fears the murder was motivated by anti-Semitism, reported Israel Hayom.

Forensic teams worked over the weekend to gather evidence in an investigation that French government officials are following closely, due to the sensitivity of the incident.

The fire was reportedly lit at five different points in the apartment, pointing to arson.

On Monday, French authorities said that two suspects had been taken into custody, and that they are planning to charge them with premeditated murder of a vulnerable person for anti-Semitic motives.

They will face charges of “murder related to the victim’s religion, real or imagined,” said a French judicial source, according to AFP.

Sources in the Jewish community said Knoll had previously complained about threats from her Muslim neighbor, saying he had even threatened to burn her.

Prominent figures in the French Jewish community say that while the incident was not widely reported as such in local media, it was undoubtedly an anti-Semitic attack.

“For the Jews of France, the nightmare continues. While France is still reeling from trauma after the terrorist attack in Trèbes, we discover today the shocking murder last Friday of Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor,” French MP Meyer Habib, who represents France’s overseas constituency, including in Israel, said on Sunday.

During a visit to Israel, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the attack was likely anti-Semitism.

“I had a very moving and difficult moment when I had just concluded my visit to Yad Vashem. I heard about the outrageous murder of Mirelle Kanolin—a Holocaust survivor—in Paris,” he said. “We cannot yet say if the motive for the murder was anti-Semitism. But it is reasonable to assume, it will not be surprising and, therefore, this only strengthens the fact that this struggle has not ended, and that we will need to continue fighting against anti-Semitism.”</s>Two suspects have been detained over the death of an 85-year old Holocaust survivor whose body was found with multiple stab wounds in her Parisian apartment, which had been set on fire.Mireille Knoll, a Jewish woman and survivor of the Vel' d'Hiv roundup -- arrests made in 1942 of Jewish people in Paris by French police -- was found on March 23 in the 11th Arrondissement, East Paris, with 11 stab wounds according to an autopsy, French police said on Monday."A preliminary examination of the elements of the crime does not reveal an anti-Semitic characteristic, but this possibility has not been discounted as police investigate further," a spokesperson for the Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ), an organization that has close ties to the French police, said.The Paris Prosecutors Office opened a formal investigation on Monday, with police sources telling France Info radio that a judicial investigation into the murder had been opened, "on the grounds, whether true or supposed, that the victim belonged to a religion."The suspects, one 29-year old man believed to be Knoll's neighbor, and the other a homeless man known to police, have been arrested but not charged, according to local French newspaper Le Parisian.France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drain, who is currently visiting Israel, said of the attack, "it reminds us of the fundamental and permanent side of this battle [referring to anti-Semitism]," after visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.The Jewish Community in France is over half a million strong, the largest in Western Europe, and many fear a rise in anti-Semitism.The death of another Jewish woman, 65-year old Sarah Halimi-Attal, occurred nearly one year ago just blocks away from Knoll's apartment. Halimi-Attal's death was judged by prosecutors to be anti-Semitic. In February 2015, just one month after four Jewish people were killed in a Paris kosher grocery store, 250 gravestones were vandalized in a cemetery in Eastern France.A press release calling for an immediate investigation into the motives behind the attack was posted on Twitter by The International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA), a French organization opposed to racism and anti-Semitism established in 1927.The Representative Council of French Jewish Organizations, known as Crif also posted on Twitter Sunday a press release about the attack calling for "total transparency in the current investigation, so that the motives for this barbaric crime are known of all as fast as possible."France's Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia also tweeted the following about the case: "The horror of crime and the violence of the executioners are identical and refer to the negation of the human face..."The attack took place the same day that a heroic French Police Colonel was killed in Trebes, in the South of France, during a hostage situation perpetrated by an ISIS-inspired assailant.A representative from the Crif organization announced on Monday that a march in memory of Mireille Knoll would be held on March 28 at 6.30 p.m., from the Place de la Nation in Paris.</s>Two suspects were charged with the murder of an elderly holocaust survivor in France, judicial sources said Tuesday morning, according to an AFP report.



The two are suspected of killing her because of her Jewish religion, a judicial source said.







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Mireille Knoll, 85, was found dead on Friday at her apartment in Paris's central 11th district. She had been stabbed multiple times and her flat set alight.President Emmanuel Macron responded to her death by saying that he was determined to stamp out antisemitism in France, home to western Europe's largest Jewish community.The suspects were interrogated by police before being sent before a judge, who initiated a formal investigation into murder motivated by the real or supposed adherence to a religion, as well as aggravated theft and damage to property, the source said.Under French law, being placed under formal investigation often - but not always - leads to people being sent to trial.As a child in Paris, Knoll evaded the round-up of Jews during World War Two, Paris lawmaker Meyer Habib said. Thousands of Jews were taken to the Velodrome d'Hiver cycling track in 1942 and sent on to Nazi death camps.Macron visits Paris holocaust memorial (credit: REUTERS)France's 400,000-strong community has complained for years of a rise in antisemitic hate crimes.In 2015, vandals desecrated 250 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in eastern France only days after four Jews were killed in an attack on a kosher grocery in Paris.Knoll's killing took place a year to the day after the murder of Sarah Halimi-Attal, a 65-year-old whose killing prosecutors believe was antisemitic.France's chief rabbi on Monday described Knoll's death as a "horror" and Jewish leaders called for a march in her memory.In a Twitter message late on Monday night, Macron said: "I want to express my emotion after the horrific crime committed against Mme Knoll. I reaffirm my total determination in fighting antisemitism."</s>French authorities are investigating the murder of an 85-year-old Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust as an anti-Semitic hate crime, French media reported Tuesday.

Mireille Knoll was found stabbed to death and partially burned in her home in a social housing complex in Paris’ 11th-arrondissement on Friday. Two men have been placed under investigation and face charges of deliberate murder motivated by anti-Semitism, aggravated theft and dangerous destruction of property.

As a child, Knoll escaped the notorious roundup of French Jewish citizens in Paris in July 1942, in which more than 13,000 Jews were detained at the Vel D’Hiv cycling track and subsequently murdered in Nazi camps. More than 4,000 were children.

France’s Interior Minister Gérard Collomb released a statement saying Knoll was killed as a result of her “membership, real or supposed … of a particular religion,” referring to her Jewish faith.

“To attack a Jew is to attack France,” Collomb said, adding that the attack “recalls the darkest hours of our history.”

“All the necessary means will be mobilized so that light is shed on the motivations of the perpetrators of this act of barbarity,” the statement reads.

The attack took place barely one week after the French government announced a new plan to fight racism and anti-Semitism online and in schools. French President Emmanuel Macron called the act an “appalling crime” and reaffirmed his “absolute determination to fight anti-Semitism.”

The government faced criticism from France’s Jewish community over its failure to say that the murder of 65-year-old Sarah Halimi, an orthodox Jewish woman who was thrown out of her window in the same Paris neighborhood in April last year, was a hate crime.

A judge last month ruled that the killing was motivated by anti-Semitism, overturning a previous decision.</s>Two men have been charged with fatally stabbing an 85-year-old French Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust – and Paris prosecutors say the death is being probed as an “anti-Semitic murder.”

Mireille Knoll, 85, who escaped a notorious roundup of Parisian Jews shipped off to Auschwitz, was found dead Friday with 11 stab wounds in her torched apartment in Paris’ eastern 11th district.

The public prosecutor’s department in Paris opened its probe into “a murder based on the assumption that the vulnerable victim belonged to a specific religion.”

“All the necessary means will be mobilized so that we will figure out the motivations of the authors of this barbaric act, which reminds us of the darkest hours of our history,” Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said, CNN reported. “To attack a Jew, it is to attack France and the values that establish the foundation of the nation.”

As a child in France during World War II, Knoll managed to escape the 1942 roundup of more than 13,000 Jews by fleeing with her mother to Portugal, Paris lawmaker Meyer Habib told Reuters.

Thousands of Jews were taken to the Velodrome d’Hiver cycling track that year and sent on to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

After the war, Kroll returned to the French capital and married a Holocaust survivor, who died in the early 2000s.

One of the men is a neighbor in his 20s whom Knoll knew well and who had visited her that day, Knoll’s son, who did not wish to be named, told Agence France-Presse.

A police source told AFP that the suspect had convictions for rape and sexual assault.

The second suspect, 21 years old, has a history of violent robbery. He was in Knoll’s building on the day of her death, a police source said.

French President Emmanuel Macron has described Knoll’s killing as a “dreadful crime” on Twitter.

“I reaffirm my absolute determination to fight against anti-Semitism,” he said.

During an official visit to Israel, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said “it was a very difficult and emotional moment for me. I had just completed my visit to Yad Vashem and I heard about the horror of the murder,” the Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported.

Yad Vashem is Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.

Knoll’s killing took place a year to the day after the murder of Sarah Halimi-Attal, 65, whose killing prosecutors believe was anti-Semitic. A neighbor threw her out the window of her Paris apartment while shouting “Allahu Akhbar!” — “God is greatest” in Arabic.</s>Two men arrested over the murder of a Holocaust-era survivor who was repeatedly stabbed in her Paris home are suspected of killing her because she was Jewish, a judicial source said on Tuesday.

Mireille Knoll, 85, was found dead with 11 stab wounds at her apartment in a working class area of the capital on Friday. The apartment was set on fire after the attack.

One of the suspects was a long-time neighbor who recently finished a jail sentence for a sex offense, the victim's son Daniel Knoll told i24 News, an Israeli channel.

He said the neighbor had spent much of Friday, when the Jewish day of rest begins at sundown, chatting with his mother at the apartment, with the two sharing a drink.

According to the judicial source, the arrested men were notified by a judge that they are suspected of murder motivated by the victim's "real or supposed adherence to a religion," as well as aggravated theft and damage to property.

President Emmanuel Macron responded on Twitter to the death. "I want to express my emotion after the horrific crime committed against Mme Knoll," he wrote late on Monday. "I reaffirm my total determination in fighting anti-Semitism."

Mireille Knoll had lived in the neighborhood - in the building where she died and another on the same street - for 60 years, said Francis Kalifat, head of Crif, a body that represents France's 400,000-strong Jewish community.

Knoll - who narrowly escaped being rounded up with around 13,000 Jews who were held at a cycling track in Paris in July 1942 before being deported to Auschwitz - had known the suspect since he was seven years old, he added.

One source close to the investigation told Reuters the two arrested men had given conflicting accounts to police. One told interrogators he heard the other shout the words "God is greatest" in Arabic during the attack.

The second suspect is a homeless man, according to Gilles-William Goldnadel, the victim's lawyer.

Daniel Knoll said his mother suffered from Parkinson's disease and was not aware that her neighbor had spent time in jail for molesting the 12-year-old daughter of a woman who acted as her live-in carer.

France's Jewish community, the largest in Europe, has complained for years of a rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes.

In 2015, vandals desecrated 250 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in eastern France only days after four Jews were killed in an attack on a kosher grocery in Paris.

Knoll's killing took place a year to the day after the murder of Sarah Halimi-Attal, a 65-year-old whose killing prosecutors believe was anti-Semitic.

France's chief rabbi on Monday described Knoll's death as a "horror" and Jewish leaders called for a march in her memory, which is set to take place on Wednesday evening.</s>Two men have been accused of the 'anti-Semitic murder' of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor whose body was found badly burnt in her home.

Mireille Knoll, an orthodox Jew and the mum of two grown up sons who now live in Israel, was found in the flat where she lived alone in Paris on Friday night.

She had been stabbed at least 11 times and her family have been left "destroyed by grief".

Two men, including one she had known for more than 20 years, are prime suspects. The suspect known to Mrs Knoll was a neighbour.

An investigating source said: "A 29-year-old neighbour is in custody, along with a 22-year-old homeless man. Both have been connected with the crime through their phone coordinates.

"Prosecutors have now opened a judicial investigation for the murder of a vulnerable person motivated by the victim’s religion."

The source confirmed that Mrs Knoll had known the neighbour "since he was seven years old, and they had been in regular contact since".

Neither of the suspects, who are in custody in the French capital, have been named.

While police initially said there was no immediate evidence of an anti-Semitic motive, anger that a Holocaust survivor should meet such a horrific end came from as far away as Israel.

After a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the crime was "more than likely" anti-Semitic.

Mr Le Drian said anti-Semitism "would not be surprising, and only strengthens the notion that this battle is not over and we will need to keep fighting [anti-Semitism]".

Mrs Knoll was just nine when, in 1942, she escaped the so-called Vel d’Hiv Roundup in Paris.

French police directed by the occupying Nazis arrested 13,152 Jews, including more than 4000 children, and held them in the city’s winter bicycle stadium.

Most were then entrained to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where less than 100 survived.

French-Israeli MP Meyer Habib today posted a picture of Mrs Knoll on his Facebook page, while paying tribute to her.

"I visited the two sons of Mireille Knoll and their wives tonight," he wrote.

"I met a wonderful family full of humanistic values, united by love and destroyed by grief.

"Look at the bright face of this woman, who was only sweetness and kindness, to imagine the suffering of her children and grandchildren, who live in Israel and who have just arrived in Paris to pay tribute on the eve of the Passover celebrations."

He added: "Mireille Knoll was able to escape from the Vel d’Hiv roundup in 1942 thanks to her mother’s Brazilian passport."

Neither police nor prosecutors have commented on the religious or racial background of the attackers, simply describing them as French residents.

A spokesman for CRIF, France’s Representative Council of Jewish Institutions, said he expected "the utmost transparency in the ongoing investigation so that the reasons for this barbaric crime are revealed as soon as possible".
French police detain two men in connection with the murder of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who was found in the burned remains of her apartment. The prosecutor's office is investigating if the killing was "motivated by the real or supposed adherence to a religion".