Ilan Halmi was abducted because he was Jewish, his abductors a militant Muslim group from the Ivory Coast spent three months searching for a suitable victim. They were seeking a son or daughter of a wealthy Jew because they knew Jewish families have a reputation for quickly paying ransoms. He was found naked and covered with cigarette burns near a suburban train station on Feb. 13 2006. He died on his way to the hospital.

Ruth Halimi, Halimi's mother, said in an interview Sunday with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "If Ilan hadn't been Jewish, he wouldn't have been murdered." She also said that the police had told the family to ignore the gang's attempts to make contact with them.

Roger Cukierman, head of France's umbrella Jewish group, CRIF, said: "Nobody is denying that their priority was money, but their vision based on the prejudice that Jews have money, and then once they are kidnapped, the way they happily tortured them, shows the anti-Semitic element."

Following a joint operation with Ivory Coast police the Paris police have now arrested and bought back to France ten of the thirteen including the alleged ringleader, the self-styled "brain of the barbarians," Youssouf Fofana.