French court rules antisemitism not a motive in nanny’s poisoning of Jewish family |
JTA — A French appeals court ruled on Wednesday that a nanny from Algeria who was convicted of poisoning the Jewish family she worked for was not motivated by antisemitism.
The decision by the Versailles Court of Appeal comes months after the nanny, identified as Leïla Y., 42, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison by the Nanterre criminal court in December for attempting to poison the Jewish family she worked for with cleaning supplies.
During her arrest and a subsequent search of the home on Feb. 5, 2024, Leïla Y. told police, “Because they have money and power, I should never have worked for a Jewish woman; she only brought me trouble.”
Despite the nanny’s comments, the Nanterre court rejected the aggravating circumstance of antisemitism in the case, and the Versailles Court of Appeal ruled in its latest decision that the nanny’s remarks did not constitute antisemitic statements.
The family’s lawyers, Patrick Klugman and Sacha Ghozlan, decried the ruling in a press release, saying that they would seek to appeal the decision again.
“This decision makes judicial repression of antisemitism impossible and turns legal texts, meant to be protective, into mere useless scraps of paper,” Klugman and Ghozlan said.........