Did the violence that preceded the death of Jérémy Cohen, hit by a tram in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis), on February 16 have an anti-Semitic character? This is the question that agitates the political world at the end of the presidential campaign. And for the moment, justice does not know. “It does not appear from the testimonies collected so far that the attack was committed for discriminatory reasons”, indicated this Tuesday at a press conference the prosecutor of Bobigny Eric Mathais, insisting of course on the “until now “.
Similarly, “no element to date makes it possible to establish with certainty whether or not the victim was wearing a yarmulke or not at the time of the attack,” said the magistrate. The presence of a yarmulke could imply that the attackers knew that Jérémy was Jewish and lead to a possible anti-Semitic nature of this violence. Eric Mathais wished to recall that “any element making it possible to establish a discriminatory reason for this scene of violence, in particular anti-Semitic, will result in an aggravation of the criminal qualification retained”.
The many gray areas of the investigation
If the prosecutor returned to the chronology of events at the start of his press conference, he then pointed out the various gray areas of this investigation for acts of intentional violence in meetings. “Many investigations remain to be carried out to establish the exact circumstances of the events preceding the accident,” he said. At this stage, the reasons for the victim’s presence in Bobigny and the reasons for the attack she suffered have not been determined. »
The investigation is therefore far from complete and, insists the prosecutor, “the search for other witnesses will be decisive in clarifying the circumstances of this attack and leading to the arrest of the perpetrators”. Similarly, the investigations will allow, hopes the magistrate, “to establish the strength of the causal link between the scene of violence and the death of the victim”. This is why he calls on anyone with information relating to the investigation to contact the police as soon as possible.