‘’I will not be silent,’’ said Francis Kalifat, head of Crif, the umbrella representative group for French Jewish institutions, as his organization denounced the handling by the French authorities of the brutal murder of a Jewish woman, Sarah Haimi, by her Muslim neighbor last April.

In an op-ed published in daily Le Figaro, Kalifat said that ‘’the anti-Semitic crime of Sarah Halimi must be recognized as such.’’

Halimi’s killer, 27 year-old Muslim immigrant Kobili Traore, from Mali, broke into her apartment on April 7 . As he subjected Halimi — a 66-year-old former kindergarten teacher — to a savage beating, neighbors alerted police after hearing her screams. Officers who arrived at the scene just heard Traore shouting “Allahu Akhbar!” and “I have killed Shaitan!” (Arabic for ‘Satan’). Fearing a terrorist attack was being planned, the officers called for backup. But by the time anti-terror units arrived, Traore had thrown Halimi’s fractured and bruised body out of the window of her third-floor apartment.

In a statement published on its website this week, Crif wrote: “The murder of Sarah Halimi was 85 days ago already and the investigation is not advancing. Why this silence? Why this omerta?,” using the Italian-language mafia term for a cover-up among accomplices. “What is being hidden? Why this denial of anti-Semitism?”

Before publishing this statement, Crif had refrained from openly faulting the handling of the Halimi investigation, saying it was awaiting the conclusion of the police probe.

But now it changed with CRIF President’s op-ed in Le Figaro.

‘’There is evidence that this is a textbook case of an anti-Semitic murder but it is being covered up by an ‘omerta’ and this heinous crime has not been recognized for what it is,” Kalifat wrote in his op-ed.

Halimi “was butchered for the sole and only reason that she was Jewish,” he added.

"Sarah Attal-Halimi was tortured to the rhythm of surahs of the Qur'an," was alive by the balcony of Allah Akhbar alive by a 27-year-old Frenchman of Malian origin, who was recently radicalized probably during a stay in prison And attending a Salafi mosque. "

The Crif president vowed to continue to pressure authorities “until the truth comes to light about this sordid murder.”

"Our society is struggling to confront this new reality and to recognize the obviousness of naming evil when it comes to a Jewish victim. What would be the strangeness that one could only minimize or dequalify an anti-Semitic murder? "Says Francis Kalifat.

The murderer was placed under psychiatric evaluation as per his temporary insanity claim though he has no history of mental illness.

A draft indictment against him published by the Paris Prosecutor’s office did not mention a hate crime.

The Jewish community has also criticized the indifference of the media. This silence and indifference, which were condemned by several leading intellectuals denouncing the broader challenge of anti-Semitism among French Muslims, have been interpreted as a desire of top journalists and editors to ignore the case so as not to boost the electoral chances of extreme-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen in the May election.

It’s only this week that French television channel TF1 aired a report on the murder.

Attorneys for Sarah Halimi’s relatives have lodged a formal complaint with the Paris Public Prosecutor’s office over the manner in which local authorities in the French capital have treated her case.

The complaint slams the “lack of coordination” in the provision of care and welfare services to Halimi, who lived in public housing in the depressed Belleville neighborhood. Because she knew and feared the intruder, who lived in her building.

Sammy Ghozlan, head of watchdog group BNCVA, the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, has called for a probe and internal review of three police officers for failing to save Sarah Halimi.

Accoprding to Ghozlan, who is a former police commissioner, the three armed police officers arrived at the apartment before Halimi’s defenestration but decided against breaking into the apartment while waiting for backup, an investigation by BNVCA revealed, Ghozlan said.

“The police officers’ conduct suggests they had suspected a terrorist attack in progress, rather than a neighborly dispute,” he said. “If this is the case, and there is reason to believe the attack was terrorist in nature, than this case is not being treated accordingly. It is very unusual,” he added.

Ghozlan also said he feared that the officers may have refrained from taking action for fear of triggering violence or other forms of unrest through an altercation with a Muslim suspect, a scenario which in 2006 prompted riots across France, featuring the burning of cars and buildings.

EJP