A teenage boy was trapped in a cellar, forced to remove his shirt and kneel, and subjected to a recorded antisemitic attack at knifepoint in Toulouse on Wednesday, June 18, the Toulouse Prosecutor’s Office said in a press release last week.
The victim, 15, is not Jewish himself, but attends a private vocational Jewish school in Colomiers (Haute-Garonne).
According to the prosecutor, the boy went to meet a teenage girl he had been talking to on social media; however, she arrived at the meeting place with another adolescent.
Prosecutor David Charmatz added that the victim was “lured into a cellar under false pretenses” where he was met with “a third minor holding a knife.”
The victim told the police that he was then forced “to remove his T-shirt, dance, kneel, and then forced to pray and beg his attackers, while being called a dirty Jew.”
The boy was subsequently allowed to leave, but was threatened with death if he ever filed a complaint.
The prosecutor noted that the entire violent and humiliating incident was filmed and posted to social media the next day.
According to the prosecutor, two minors aged 14 and 16 have been arrested and admitted to taking part in the incident and using the knife, but disputed that the incident was “antisemitic in nature.” The two told the police that there was another reason for the attack, but did not say what.
The seized phones of the two attackers confirmed there was a recording of the humiliation and violence, but no antisemitic remarks could be heard.
A judicial investigation was opened on Sunday, 22, for “premeditated violence,” “kidnapping,” “dissemination of images of a deliberate attack on a person’s integrity,” and “death threats.”
