The trunk of the felled olive tree planted in 2011 in front of a memorial to Ilan Halimi, Epinay-sur-Seine, France, August 15, 2025. DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP
French authorities have arrested twin brothers over the cutting down of an olive tree planted in memory of Ilan Halimi, a young French Jewish man tortured to death in 2006, prosecutors said Wednesday, August 27. The suspects are to be tried immediately in a fast-track process for the racially or religiously aggravated desecration of a monument, the public prosecutor's office in the Paris suburb of Bobigny said, confirming a report in French magazine Paris Match.
It was not immediately clear when the suspects had been arrested or precisely when the trial would take place, and their identities were also not made public.
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