Toulouse: A man sentenced for threatening and insulting a lawyer as “dirty Jew”
On June 5, 2021, a Toulouse lawyer was insulted as a “dirty Jew” and threatened with death in his office, after a conflict with a client.
This Tuesday, June 7, the perpetrator was sentenced by the court of Foix, in Ariège, to 150 day-fines of 10 euros, a reported the newspaper The Dispatch.
The perpetrator, a 38-year-old man, was found guilty of anti-Semitic insults and death threats. He was sentenced to 150 day-fines of 10 euros, or 1,500 euros. Eight months’ imprisonment, four of which were suspended on probation, had previously been requested by the prosecution.
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The defendant, who already had eight entries on his criminal record, admitted the facts. “My mother-in-law called me in tears. She told me that her lawyer refused to return her file, spat in her face and kicked her. Her mouth was swollen. I was pissed off, walked in and threatened him. It’s not good, I apologize,” he said.
Indicating that “we did not solve his problems by insulting and threatening”, the President of the Court then gave the floor to the victim. “I am appalled. They say it’s my fault, that I abused Madame…”, he declared.
“I am from Toulouse and I am afraid, ten years later [les attentats dans l’école Ozar Hatorah en 2012, NDLR]. Several months, I am worried, I turn around since I leave my office. I’m afraid that someone will come back to attack me, him or someone else,” he added.
Sarah Goncalves, representative of the prosecution, said that “words sometimes become as bad as blows, and that they should not be trivialized”. She revealed that the two offenses – anti-Semitic insults and death threats – were made up, in particular thanks to a video taken at the time of the events.
At the end of May, in Toulouse, in another case of anti-Semitism, the public prosecutor requested a six-month suspended prison sentence against an Algerian imam, Mohamed Tataiat, tried on appeal for incitement “to violence or racial hatred “, after a recommended 2017 broadcast on social networks in which it spread to Jews.