Overview
- Bobigny’s correctional court found the 19-year-old twins guilty of aggravated destruction and handed one eight months in prison and the other eight months suspended.
- Judges acquitted them of degrading a memorial on racist or religious grounds, ruling there was not enough evidence they knew the olive tree honored Ilan Halimi.
- Investigators linked the pair to the site through mobile-phone location data and DNA on watermelon pieces near the trunk, and a video showed a chainsaw near the memorial days earlier.
- The Tunisian nationals, described as undocumented and precarious, acknowledged being in the park but denied cutting the tree or understanding the watermelon’s symbolism.
- Civil parties including LICRA, SOS Racisme and the UEJF condemned the act as an attack on Jewish memory, and the prosecutor had requested 12 to 15 months in custody for each.