A man who threw his 89-year-old Jewish neighbor from the 17th floor of an apartment building in Lyon, France and was convicted of murder has been sentenced to 18 years in prison. However, the judge ruled that the killing was not motivated by antisemitism.
In May 2022, Rachid Hanich, 55, invited his Jewish neighbor, René Hajaj, to his apartment. Hanish attempted to strangle the elderly man and then pushed him from the balcony of the building where they both lived.
Hanich, who had published dozens of posts online promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, was charged with aggravated murder. Had he been convicted of murder with an antisemitic motive, he would have faced a life sentence. However, the appeals court rejected the claim that he acted out of antisemitism.
Hanich was addicted to hard drugs, and said he experienced a paranoid episode on the day of the killing. When asked why he killed his neighbor, he said his illness—diagnosed after the murder—was to blame. “I don’t know what happened. He was like a father to me,” he told the court.
During the investigation, Hanich said he had argued with the victim, whom he had invited to his 17th-floor apartment. He admitted trying to strangle him and ultimately throwing him off the balcony. He told investigators that he heard a voice telling him to throw the victim.
“I am not antisemitic,” the defendant insisted during his trial, emphasizing his friendship with the victim. “He was my only anchor,” he said. The killer had been living in isolation and was unemployed. He claimed that René Hajaj “helped him discover Judaism.”
Hanich underwent two psychiatric evaluations. One concluded that he suffered from psychotic paranoia, while the other found that he had severe personality disorders. Prior to the murder, he had repeatedly posted conspiracy theories about Mossad agents.
Nevertheless, the court determined that this behavior was not directly linked to the murder itself. Immediately after pushing Hajaj to his death, the killer took an identity card and a sheet written in Hebrew that he found in the victim’s coat pocket inside the apartment and cut them up.
The judge said: “If he had thrown out religious books and other Jewish objects and symbols found in the apartment, that could have constituted evidence of antisemitism. But that is not what happened.”
Alain Jakubowicz, a lawyer representing the International League Against Racism and Antisemitism (LICRA) and the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), both civil parties in the case, argued that the defendant had been “obsessed” with the Jewish religion.
The court’s decision “reflects our society,” Muriel Ocknin-Malki, a lawyer for the victim’s family, told AFP. “It is simply a reflection of how France is dealing with the scourge of antisemitism.”