Verdict at the Mireille Knoll trial: life for the murderer Yacine Mihoub

We will probably never know with certainty if it was he alone who carried the eleven stab wounds on the one he called his "substitute grandmother", Mireille Knoll. But for the Paris Assize Court, Yacine Mihoub, 32, the son of the neighbor on the seventh floor, is indeed the sole perpetrator of the murder: he was sentenced to life imprisonment, accompanied by a period 22-year security.

Read alsoYacine Mihoub designated as the sole perpetrator of the murder of Mireille Knoll

When deliberating, did the jurors have in mind, as a family lawyer had instructed them, these terrible photos, projected at the hearing, "of the calcined corpse to two-thirds, pierced by eleven stab wounds" ? A "particularly savage" murder, in the words of Advocate General Jean-Christophe Muller: the frail octogenarian, survivor of the Shoah, suffering from Parkinson's disease, was found stabbed and burned on March 23, 2018, in his HLM in the 11th arrondissement of Paris.

“Global Antisemitic Context”

Yacine Mihoub's sidekick, Alex Carrimbacus, 25, a young marginal with a psychiatric history met in prison, was acquitted of the murder of the old lady but was sentenced to 15 years in prison, accompanied by a sentence two-thirds security for the victim's theft. The anti-Semitic nature of the murder and theft was upheld by the Assize Court. “It's an important day for justice!” exclaimed Me Gilles William Goldnadel, lawyer for the Knoll sons. The judges were harsh but fair in recognizing that Yacine Mihoub was the only culprit. »

Read alsoProjected in the courtroom, the images of the murder of Mireille Knoll reveal its barbarism

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In the morning, the proceedings ended with a few words of contrition from the two co-defendants: “I did not kill Ms. Knoll, I am sorry for her family, declared Yacine Mihoub, without apparent emotion. I want to apologize to my mother for what she has been through for the past three years. Addressing the sons of the victim, Alex Carrimbacus for his part launched: “I regret not having done anything, I could have done, I should have done, I regret. »

On Tuesday, the Advocate General had requested life imprisonment against Mr. Mihoub, in his eyes "solely responsible" for the murder. Also insisting on the “halo of anti-Semitism”, recalling that the “manifestations of anti-Semitism by Mr. Mihoub (were) obviously numerous”. After the Islamist attacks of January 2015, he wrote graffiti on the walls of his cell to the glory of the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly, the Hyper Cacher terrorist. “It was to piss off the prison administration,” he justified himself at the hearing. Then referring to the victims of the Holocaust with a certain casualness: “One or two million dead, we don't know. We cannot prove it. “In his pleading, his counsel, Me Charles Consigny, had castigated an indictment with “medieval terms” and a trial which “reduced (his client) to his religion”.

"Like a poison"

The civil parties and the defense of Alex Carrimbacus had also overwhelmed Yacine Mihoub. Isolating for example this sentence intercepted during telephone tapping during the investigation. “She was 85; I should have let life eat it up,” Yacine had blurted out to his mother. “It is very eloquent” on the “grievance against Ms. Knoll”, concluded Me Karim Laouafi, counsel for Alex Carrimbacus. According to him, "the trigger" dates back to the sexual assault perpetrated by Yacine Mihoub in 2017 on the daughter of the caregiver who was staying with Ms. Knoll. “Yacine the mytho doesn’t care about us!” exclaimed a little earlier Me Julien Charle, counsel for the victim’s grandchildren. He brought in Carrimbacus to have a partner, a culprit in this crime. “It is” the meeting between horror and cowardice “, had meanwhile estimated Me Sébastien Journé, lawyer for the sons of Mireille Knoll.

Invited by Yacine for "a money plan", Alex would have attended the last stabbings and lent a lighter which was used to set the fire. He also assures that Yacine would have shouted “Allah akbar” when delivering the final blow to the throat of the octogenarian. Against him, the Advocate General had asked for eighteen years' imprisonment for aggravated theft: by "contamination", "anti-Semitism, like a poison, also reached him", he had estimated, since the Belonging to the Jewish religion of Mireille Knoll had led Alex Carrimbacus to believe that there would be valuables to steal from her home.

Alongside “the anti-Semitism that we know, that of the Hyper Cacher killers, there is another much more sneaky one, warned, during her argument Me Valérie Boisgard, the lawyer for the Association Lawyers Without Borders. This grandmother who had faced the horrors of the Third Reich possibly did not recognize this new face of anti-Semitism. Or maybe she saw it too late…”

SEE ALSO - Trial of the murder of Mireille Knoll: "We are waiting for a very severe verdict", warns her son

In order to "never forget his anti-Semitic assassination", the sons of Mireille Knoll wrote to the Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, to ask him that a national day be instituted on March 23, during the annual week of education against racism and anti-Semitism, in his memory. It would be associated, they propose, "other victims of barbarism" such as "Father Hamel, Arnaud Beltrame or Samuel Paty".