Police in Paris arrested a 27-year-old man in connection with the death of his neighbor, a Jewish woman whose lifeless body was found outside their apartment building.
Sarah Halimi, 66, died Monday night.
Police have not said whether they have a theory as to what led to her death or whether she was pushed from her window on Vaucouleurs Street in the crime-ridden 11th district of the French capital, according to a report Wednesday by the Actualite Juive weekly.
The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism watchdog, however, believes it may have been premeditated murder possibly aggravated by racial hatred, the watchdog’s president, Sammy Ghozlan, told JTA on Wednesday.
Ghozlan, a retired police commissioner, said relatives of Halimi said that she had previously experienced anti-Semitic harassment by a relative of the man under arrest.
“This tragedy may have been the result of a random violent crime by a thug, or maybe there was a background of racial hatred here, or hateful ideology Lat this point it’s not known yet,” Ghozlan said.
Halimi’s family wants to have her buried in Jerusalem. The body will undergo an autopsy
Police in Paris are investigating a 27-year-old Arab man on suspicion that he murdered his neighbor Lucy Halimi, a 66-year-old Jewish Charedi woman, following a confrontation in her apartment.
Mrs. Halimi’s body was found on the street beneath her third-floor apartment Tuesday morning at approximately 4:00 a.m. Halimi lived in her apartment alone. One of her children lives in Israel while two other daughters live in France.
According to suspicions, the man, who is already known to the police, pushed her to her death from her apartment which was located on the third floor of the building.
Neighbors reportedly testified that they had heard the suspect shouting that he wanted to kill Halimi just before the incident. Others reported reports state that the suspect stabbed the woman in her bed while yelling” Allah Akbar and then pushed her from the third floor.
Mrs. Halimi lived in Paris’ 11th district, which is home to a large population of immigrants from North Africa and is one of the most densely populated areas of the city.
A levayah was held on Wednesday afternoon in Paris.
Mrs. Halimi A’H also lived near the site of the 2015 shooting at the Bataclan Theater that claimed the lives of 131 victims and wounded many others.
Baruch Dayan Ha’emes.