Jewish Group

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.

An olive tree, planted in 2011 in Halimi’s memory, was felled earlier this month in the northern Paris suburb of Epinay-sur-Seine, in an act that stirred outrage in the country.

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 they had been arrested or precisely when the trial would take place. Their identities were also not made public.

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