Mireille Knoll was found dead in her Paris apartment in 2018. In an attack that outraged the country, the 85-year-old was stabbed 11 times and her house was burned down.
The allegations on three counts were confirmed on July 10 by examining magistrates, the prosecution said.
The men are charged with “the murder of a vulnerable person committed due to the religion of the true or suspected victim,” as well as “aggravated robbery” and “degradation by dangerous means for people,” the office said.
One suspect was Knoll’s neighbor, who was 27 at the time of the stabbing. He had previously been jailed for sexually assaulting the daughter of Knoll’s housemaid, a judicial source told CNN in 2018.
The second suspect was a homeless man, who was 21 years old at the time of the murder.
The couple maintains that they are innocent, reports AFP.
A third person has also been charged in connection with the case, on charges of “destroying a document or object related to a crime or offense to prevent the truth from being established.” That person is under judicial supervision, the prosecution said.
She escaped from a Nazi rodeo
“In this case, finally justice. And nothing else,” William Goldnadel, a lawyer for the Knoll family, wrote on Twitter on Monday.
“We were eagerly awaiting that reaction from the justice system regarding the final indictment,” Alain Knoll, the victim’s son, told CNN affiliate BFMTV on Monday.
“We are very satisfied with the way things are going, with the fact that there will be a trial, with the fact that the double aggravating circumstance of anti-Semitism has been maintained.”
According to legislator Meyer Habib, Knoll escaped from the Rodeo Vel ‘d’Hiv’ in 1942, which was ordered by the Nazi occupiers and resulted in the mass arrest of 13,000 French Jews.
The detainees were held at the Vel ‘d’Hiv cycling track in Paris before thousands were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
French President Emmanuel Macron described his murder as a “terrible crime” on Twitter. In his comments, he also reaffirmed his “absolute determination to fight anti-Semitism.”
Former Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said in January that 687 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in 2019 in France compared to 541 in 2018, an increase of 27%.
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