The suspect in the alleged murder of Jewish physician Sarah Halimi in Paris was not responsible for his actions, a second psychiatric evaluation determined, according to JTA.
The president of the CRIF umbrella of French Jewish communities protested the court’s decision to revisit the issue of suitability to stand trial of Kobili Traore, which the court pursued on its own initiative and not at the request of his defense.
The 28-year-old Muslim man confessed to the killing and was heard shouting “Allahu Akbar” and calling Halimi “Satan” shortly before throwing her out the window of her three-story apartment.
In January, Traore was determined to be fit to stand trial. He was placed in a psychiatric hospital for weeks after his arrest in the April 2017 killing despite having no history of mental illness.
But a judge requested a second series of tests, which determined that the Malian immigrant was not able to stand trial, 20 Minutes reported Wednesday.
“We do not understand the determination and procrastination that consistently seeks to turn this killer into a demented person, when he is a murderer whose presumed detention doesn’t even hide his hateful anti-Semitism,” CRIF’s Francis Kalifat wrote, according to JTA.
A third evaluation will follow before the court finally reaches a decision.
An aggravated element of a hate crime was added to Traore’s indictment following vocal protests by CRIF, which said that the omission of such charges may have part of a “cover up” by French authorities.
Witnesses said Traore called Halimi a “demon” as he was pummeling her. Halimi’s daughter said following the murder that Traore called her, the daughter, a “dirty Jewess” two years before the killing when they passed each other in the building.
France's half-a-million-plus Jewish community has voiced increasing concern with a rise in anti-Semitic acts that have seen thousands of Jews leave for Israel.
An official report by the French Interior Ministry, released in February, found that anti-Semitism in the country is on the rise.
In March, 85-year-old French Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll was murdered in her apartment in Paris.
Prosecutors have indicted two defendants in connection with what is being tried as a murder with aggravated circumstances of a hate crime. They are also charged with robbery.
One of the suspects in custody, a 29-year-old Muslim man, was a neighbor of Knoll. Prosecutors investigating the murder have confirmed the two suspects in custody targeted her because she was Jewish.