The Other Daniel Pearl
The photo is worthy of the name of the magazine whose cover it adorns: “Shock” or “Choc” in French. It shows a man whose head has been wrapped in duct tape. His face is completely covered except for a small space that has been left for his nose. The nose is bloodied. The man’s hands are bound in front of him, likewise with tape. A key chain has been hung on his fingers: perhaps to help identify him or perhaps as a subtle threat to his family or friends. The man is seated in front of an orange and purple drape, evidently to hide his surroundings. A copy of the Parisian daily Le Parisien has been propped up on his arms in front of his chest, thus indicating the date. Emerging from off frame, a gloved-hand holds a gun pressed against the man’s temple.
The man in the photo is Ilan Halimi: the 23-year-old French Jew who was kidnapped, tormented, and killed by a self-styled “gang of barbarians” in the Parisian banlieue in early 2006. Halimi went missing on January 20, 2006. When police found him bound and naked near train tracks south of Paris on February 13, he was barely still alive. He had two stab wounds to his throat, another on his side, and burns over 80% of his body. He would die the same day from his wounds and the combined effects of the abuse he had suffered over the previous three and a half weeks.
The 28-year-old Youssouf Fofana – nicknamed the “Brain of the Barbarians” – and twenty six of his presumed accomplices are currently on trial in Paris for the kidnapping, torture and murder of Ilan Halimi. But one would barely have known it. The trial, which began on April 29, has been closed to both the public and the press.
In an article on the trial in Sunday’s em>New York Times<, reporter Meg Bortin works hard to try to present the closing of the proceedings as normal or even desirable in light of French law and the presence among the accused of persons who were minors at the time of the crime. (“But François Dubet, a sociology professor at Bordeaux University, said the law had some positive aspects: ‘Society is being protected from the spectacle of a particularly abominable crime...’. Mr. Dubet contended that the French feel more strongly than Americans about protecting the rights of minors in such situations.”) In fact, however, given that only two of the twenty seven defendants were minors at the time of the crime, it would have been a simple and entirely habitual matter to separate their indictments from those of the twenty five others. (Instead of chatting with sociologists, Ms. Bortin could have consulted the relevant French law here.) As a result of the decision not to do so, all twenty seven are now being tried before a juvenile court. Even in the often bizarre world of French justice, it counts as something of an oddity for a 28-year-old murder suspect to be tried before a juvenile court – to say nothing of codefendants like the 42-year-old Gilles Serrurier.
The existence of the photo published in Choc is not news. It is the first of several photos that Fofana is known to have sent by e-mail to Ilan Halimi’s girlfriend and family. But this is the first time that the public has been able to see for itself the horrifying evidence of Ilan’s ordeal.
Moreover, the photo is not only significant on account of the brutality that it documents. It also provides important evidence as to the motives of Ilan’s tormentors. Fofana has acknowledged that he was specifically aiming to kidnap a Jew. Indeed, he and his “team” made several failed attempts to kidnap other Parisian Jews before finally luring Ilan into their trap. Despite this fact, French authorities and the French media have consistently sought to downplay the anti-Semitic aspect of the crime. (In recent years, this has indeed become the typical response to anti-Semitic violence of both the authorities and the media in France. See, for instance, my 2008 reports here and here.) The indictment acknowledges anti-Semitism as an aggravating factor, but the motive of the crime is generally assumed to have been economic.
The question, however, is: Which crime? As concerns the kidnapping, it is undoubtedly the case that economic considerations predominated. Fofana demanded ransom from Ilan’s family to obtain his release. His subordinates have told the police that he specifically targeted Jews, since Jews are “rolling in money” [bourrés de thunes] and would help one another out: hence “they pay.” Fofana’s actions – among other things, for instance, his contacting a rabbi with whom the Halimis had no connection whatsoever – indicate that he truly believed that kidnapping a Jew was crucial to the success of his plans.
But this does not explain the kidnappers’ savage treatment of Ilan, nor does it explain why he was killed. Jean-Christophe G., nicknamed “Zigo,” was one of the “jailers” who took turns guarding Ilan. He was seventeen at the time of the crime. Zigo has admitted to putting out a joint on Ilan’s forehead. One of his fellow “jailers” is reported to have explained the gesture by the fact that Zigo didn’t like “feujs” (Le Monde, 21 March 2006). Feuj is French slang for “Jew.” Fofana himself, moreover, has made no secret of his anti-Semitism. For example, when questioned by investigative judge Baudouin Thouvenot, Fofana is reported to have expressed a preference for Thouvenot’s colleague Corinne Goetzmann. “I like you a lot,” Fofana told Thouvenot, “But I prefer Madame Goetzmann, because she’s a Jew and I prefer to deal with my enemies face to face rather than via an intermediary” (em>L’Express, 23 January 2008<). Such remarks have been dismissed by French media commentators as an “act.”
Now, however, thanks to the publication of the photo in Choc, we know something that has previously only been hinted at. Fofana appears to have taken as his model perhaps the most notorious anti-Semitic crime of the last decade: namely, the kidnapping and eventual beheading of Daniel Pearl. Under the title “An Anti-Semitic Crime: Same Scenario, Same Target”, Choc usefully juxtaposes the photo of Ilan Halimi with three photos of Daniel Pearl in captivity. What the juxtaposition reveals is that the Halimi photo is a kind of composite of the Pearl photos. The newspaper as proof of date, the bound hands, the pistol emerging from outside the frame, the background drape: all these elements are present as well in the Pearl photos. The only major differences are the tape around the head and the bloodied nose. At this stage, Fofana appears, in effect, to have displayed even greater brutality than his role model: Al-Qaeda “operations chief” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Choc’s Comparison of the Halimi and Pearl Photos
In her recently published memoir “24 Days” [em>24 jours]<, Ilan’s mother Ruth recalls that the kidnappers also dispatched an audio cassette. On it, Ilan can be heard saying the following: “I am Ilan. Ilan Halimi. I am the son of Halimi Didier and of Halimi Ruth. I am Jewish. I am being held hostage.” “How could one not think of Daniel Pearl, who was forced, like Ilan, to recite…that he was a Jew?” Ruth Halimi comments. And, alluding to the refusal of French investigators to treat Ilan’s kidnapping as an anti-Semitic crime, she continues:
Have the investigators thought of this? Do they finally understand that I have been right from the start? Do they recognize the anti-Semitic motives of the kidnappers? No. They draw no conclusions from the cassette. And the tragic end of Daniel Pearl… haunts me alone.
Moreover, the macabre parallels continued, in effect, right to the end. It is Youssouf Fofana himself who is alleged to have stabbed Ilan and set him on fire on the day of his “release” south of Paris. According to the deposition of Samir Ait Abdelmalek, one of Fofana’s lieutenants, Fofana told Abdelmalik that after stabbing Ilan twice in the throat, he in fact then tried to “cut his neck” (Le Monde, 21 March 2006).
French authorities and the rest of the French media have predictably reacted to the publication of the photo in Choc by attacking the messenger. It is not the fact that clear evidence of the anti-Semitic nature of the crime has been hidden for so long that is supposed to be the scandal, but rather Choc’s rendering public of the evidence. The Paris district attorney’s office has opened an investigation against Choc and the magazine’s website has gone offline. Citing privacy concerns, Ruth Halimi’s lawyer, Francis Szpiner, has seconded the district attorney’s office. On Wednesday, following a joint complaint of the two parties, the magazine was withdrawn from newsstands.
The publication of the photo must undoubtedly be painful for the Halimi family, just as the publication of the photos of Daniel Pearl must have been painful for Daniel Pearl’s family. But it is worth citing Mrs. Halimi’s own words in this connection. Writing in “24 Days” about the widespread denial of the anti-Semitic motives of her son’s tormentors, she comments: “I was mortified, offended, and disgusted by this obstinate refusal to confront the reality. It gave me the feeling that Ilan was dying for a second time, since to deny the reasons for his torment was to kill him again.”
Perhaps alone among the French media, Choc at least will not have been complicit in this second killing of Ilan Halimi. What Choc has done is to reveal the brutal reality of what was done to Ilan. It is a reality that mere words cannot capture.