PARIS: Three French boys went on trial Wednesday charged with the gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in 2024 outside Paris, a crime that shocked the Jewish community at a time of rising anti-Semitic attacks.
The trial, which is due to last until Friday, is being held at a juvenile court in Nanterre, a suburb of western Paris.
Two boys, aged 13 at the time, are being tried on charges of the gang rape of a minor on religious grounds. The third, then aged 12, is accused of being complicit in the crime.
All three boys are charged with sexual assault on a minor as well as recording and sharing sexual images, aggravated by being committed on religious grounds.
The girl told police she was approached by the three boys on June 15, 2024, whilst in a park near her home in the northwestern Paris suburb of Courbevoie, close to the La Defense financial district.
She was dragged into a shed where the suspects beat her and “forced” her to have sex “while uttering death threats and anti-Semitic remarks”, one police source had told AFP.
The victim told investigators the boys had called her a “dirty Jew” and asked her questions about “her Jewish religion” and Israel.
The rape was filmed by one boy, and another threatened to kill the girl if she reported the ordeal to authorities, police sources said.
The attack had shocked the Jewish community in France and was unanimously condemned by politicians.
At the time, President Emmanuel Macron had denounced the “scourge” of anti-Semitism.
Several demonstrations in support of the victim had taken place in Paris and in Courbevoie.
Reported anti-Semitic acts in France surged from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023, before dipping slightly to 1,570 last year, according to the interior ministry.
Jewish groups have said that the number of such attacks has surged following the attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023 which was followed by Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip and aid blockade.
“Firstly, our client expects that the aggressors will be punished for what they did and that the punishment in in line with the gravity of their actions,“ Muriel Ouaknine-Melki, one of the victim’s lawyers, told the court on Wednesday.
“And secondly, she is looking for answers about what happened. Why this outburst of violence?” said Ouaknine-Melki.
“As we all know, there is an explosion of anti-Semitic acts in France,“ added Oudy Bloch, another one of the girl’s lawyers.
“Our young client suffered a year of anti-Semitic bullying at school before she was attacked, and she wants this rise in anti-Semitism to be taken into account and that the government acts,“ he added.
Clementine Berthier, the defence lawyer for one of the suspects, said she hoped “the trial would be serene and peaceful for all parties”.
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