Ilan Halimi
| Ilan Halimi | |
|---|---|
Ilan Halimi
|
|
| Born | 11 October 1982 |
| Died | 13 February 2006 (aged 23) Paris, France |
| Cause of death | Injuries from torture |
| Occupation | Cell phone salesman |
Ilan Halimi (Hebrew: אילן חלימי) was a young French Jewish man of Moroccan descent who was kidnapped on 21 January 2006 by a group called the Gang of Barbarians and subsequently tortured, over a period of three weeks, resulting in his death.
Halimi was a cell phone salesman in Paris. He lived there with his divorced mother and his two sisters.
It began when a girl (named "Emma") came to Ilan Halimi's workplace (a phone store in Paris) and started flirting with him. After exchanging phone numbers, Ilan comes home and decides he will give it a shot with that girl. Arriving at the rendez-vous point, Ilan understands too late this date was a trap. The day afterwards, and after hours when nobody had heard from him, his sister receives an emailed message containing a video showing Ilan gagged and tied up to a chair with his abductors threatening his life in exchange for money because in accordance with their words: "Jewish people have money".
For exactly 24 days, the 36 quai des Orfèvres of Paris (the high Police Department) will try vainly to understand the abductors, catch them and get Ilan back to his family. The importance of secrecy the police emphasized and the obviousness of this antisemite act that was not understood by them at that time, led to Ilan's undoing. The abductors, who called themselves the "Gang of Barbarians", tortured him and sent phone and video messages to his family while they were in contact with the police. During the 24 days of abduction, the leader of the gang called Youssouf Fofana, managed to travel back and forth to the Ivory Cost, his home country, with no trouble. There even was a time when he was suspected of being related to the gang and was taken to the police station, which later released him with no proof of him leading this group at that time. The demand for ransom, initially elevated at 450 thousand Euros, diminished as the abductor's hope to see the money fade away with the police managing the situation with the parents. Many people who lived nearby the basement where Ilan was tortured knew something wrong was happening, but did not take any action. Many said that they did not go to the police station out of fear and others said they did not want to intervene in a business that was not theirs.
After three never ending weeks of suspicions, investigations, hatred and threatening messages, the family and the police stopped receiving news from the captors. Ilan was taken naked, burnt on more than 80% of his body and with torture marks on February 13, 2006 and thrown away next to a road at Sainte-Geneviève-Des-Bois. He was found by a woman passing there, who immediately called for an ambulance. He died on his way to the hospital.
...
Wikipedia