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Killer of French Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll is jailed for life
Yacine Mihoub was convicted of stabbing her 11 times before setting her body on fire in her Paris apartment
A French man has been jailed for life for the murder of an 85-year-old Jewish woman in her Paris apartment.
Mireille Knoll was stabbed 11 times and her body set alight by Yacine Mihoub, 32, during an attempted robbery three years ago.
His accomplice Alex Carrimbacus, 25, was jailed for 15 years for botched robbery attempt.
The court found both men were motivated by antisemitism, fuelled by “prejudices” about the purported wealth of Jewish people and the belief that Knoll’s home contained “hidden treasures”.
The two reportedly met in prison – while serving earlier sentences for robbery, violence and sexual assault – and blamed each other for the assault.
Carrimbacus claimed he heard Mihoub should “Allahu akbar”.
Knoll’s death prompted outrage in France, with tens of thousands attending tribute marches across the country and President Emmanuel Macron among the guests at her funeral.
She fled Paris in 1942 at the age of nine as the authorities began to round up local Jews and herd them into the Vel d’Hiv stadium.
Around 13,000 people were sent from the stadium to the Auschwitz death camp. Fewer than 100 survived.
Knoll was helped by a family member with Brazilian citizenship who arranged an escape through southern European and Canada.
Her son Daniel told the Associated Press last month that she returned to France after the war and remained in her modest apartment even as her grandchildren relocated to Israel.
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