Overview
- Prosecutor Éric Mathais announced the appeal on Friday, contesting the court’s refusal to recognize an antisemitic motive.
- On Wednesday, the Bobigny tribunal convicted two 19-year-old twin brothers of aggravated destruction and sentenced them to eight months in prison, one firm and one suspended.
- Judges said there was insufficient proof the defendants knew the olive tree commemorated Ilan Halimi, which led to the non-recognition of an antisemitic motive.
- Investigators cited phone data placing the brothers at the park and DNA on watermelon pieces found by the cut trunk, with the fruit discussed at trial as a Palestinian-resistance symbol.
- Prosecutors had sought 12 and 15 months in prison and permanent expulsion, and a courtroom hypothesis of a possible third-party instigator remains unproven with no other suspects identified.