(JTA) — Three men who committed an anti-Semitic rape and robbery in a Paris suburb four years ago were sentenced in a French court.
Two of the men, Abdou Salam Koita, 26, and Ladje Haidara, 23, who committed the rape in Creteil, were sentenced to eight years and 13 years, respectively, on Friday. They were in court in Val-de-Marne, southeast of Paris, when the sentences were announced.
A third man, Houssame Hatri, 22, remains on the lam and was sentenced to 16 years.
Two accomplices in custody were sentenced to five and six years in prison.
The court recognized the anti-Semitic nature of the 2014 attack on the young couple in an apartment.
The attackers chose their victims because they were sure they had money since they are Jewish. The couple, aged 19 at the time, were staying at the apartment of the man’s parents.
Haidara raped the woman while another guarded her boyfriend inside the apartment. The third went out to withdraw the couple’s money from a cash machine with their stolen credit cards and ATM cards while the other two stayed behind. They also stole jewelry from the apartment.
“Jews, you have money at home, you do not put it in the bank,” one of the assailants said during the attack.
Hatri said that it was “for my brothers in Palestine” before suggesting they “gas” their victims with teargas, the French news service AFP reported.
The men denied that they had anti-Semitic motives in carrying out the attack.
The incident sparked outrage in France’s Jewish community and came amid a string of anti-Semitic attacks.
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