March 25, 2009

by Haaretz Service

Ruth Halimi, at the funeral of her son Ilan (AP)

The mother of slain Parisian Jew Ilan Halimi has called for a public trial so that her son's death "will not have been in vain", French newspaper Le Figaro reported Tuesday.

The trial, which will open in Paris on April 29, is scheduled to be held behind closed doors at a juvenile court, because two of the 30 gang members allegedly behind Halimi's murder were minors at the time of the act.

French law allows for a public trial to be held in certain cases where juveniles are involved.

Halimi, 23, was found naked, tortured and covered in burns near Paris on February 13, 2006, after being held captive by a gang calling itself "The Barbarians" for three weeks in a crime that shocked France and raised fears of surging anti-Semitism among French Muslims. He died of his injuries soon afterward.

He was reburied at the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem in February 2007.

Halimi's mother, Ruth, made the decision to reinter his body in Israel after speaking with Jewish Agency Chairman Ze'ev Bielsky.