PARIS, March 5, 2008 (AFP) - French officials voiced outrage Wednesday
after it emerged a gang had locked up and attacked a Jewish youth in the same
Paris suburb where a young Jew was tortured to death two years ago.
   Six youths from Bagneux, south of Paris, are accused of locking up a
19-year-old youth in a storage room on February 22, beating and sexually
tormenting him, and scrawling 'dirty Jew' and 'dirty faggot' on his face.
   Aged 17 to 25, the six youths -- who knew the victim -- had falsely accused
him of stealing from them, according to judicial officials. The young man was
later hospitalised "in a state of shock".
   "We are shocked and outraged. We condemn such acts in the strongest terms,"
Bagneux city hall said in a statement.
   The youths face charges of group violence motivated by a person's "real or
supposed race, religion or sexual orientation", acts of torture, blackmail and
theft.
   A young Jewish man, 23-year-old Ilan Halimi, was kidnapped for three weeks
and tortured to death by a violent extorsion gang from Bagneux in 2006, in a
suspected anti-Semitic crime that shocked the country.
   Close to 30 people are under investigation over the killing, with the
gang's ringleader, Youssef Fofana, to stand trial for murder in the coming
months.

AFP