The Paris public prosecutor opened a probe into the “anti-Semitic character” of an attack on a Jewish teen.
The probe will determine if Rudy Haddad’s unidentified attackers are guilty of “attempted murder aggravated by an anti-Semitic character” and “group violence with aggravating circumstances,” said Prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin at a news conference Tuesday evening, the AFP news agency reported.
Marin said Haddad, 17, who remains in the hospital but has regained consciousness, was beaten June 21 in circumstances related to a string of fights pitting young Jews against young blacks that took place that afternoon and evening.
“We have a sort of identification of a presupposed African or black community on one hand, and a Jewish community on the other,” Marin said. “It is anti-Semitism by incidence.”
The prosecutor said investigators believe Haddad was targeted because he was a member of a Jewish band of youth and not necessarily because he was “a person of Jewish origin.”
It is also unclear if Haddad was attacked after he left synagogue or on his way there, as was reported earlier by some Jewish community organizations.
The National Bureau of Vigilance Against Ant-Semitism, which is conducting its own investigation into the attack, said Haddad was “on his way to synagogue” when attacked, despite contradictory testimony from other Jewish groups in news reports.
