...In the days since the dying Halimi was discovered, some journalists have been making ugly discoveries. The gang of thugs (they called themselves "the Barbarians") had sequestered the young man in an apartment that had been rented by the doorman of the building. The doorman knew what had been happening but did nothing. Many other residents in the building had heard a man screaming, but had decided to mind their own business instead of calling for help, even anonymously. "When you live here, you think about yourself and only about yourself," one of them said.

The screams must have been loud because the torture was especially atrocious: the thugs cut bits off the flesh of the young man, they cut his fingers and ears, they burned him with acid, and in the end poured flammable liquid on him and set him on fire.

The head of the gang, Fofana, was arrested in a brothel in Abijan, Ivory Coast. He had been able to leave France freely, without being stopped at the border. He spoke to a French TV channel while in Abijan. He was smiling at the camera and eating a good lunch. He said he was not anti-Semitic; he just wanted money (and, he added, "Jews have money.") He insisted that he had not killed anyone; to torture and to burn is not to kill. Had he any remorse? No. He was only disappointed: he had not been successful and he had not gotten any money. The future? "If the guillotine were still in use,” he smiled, “somebody would suggest that for me."...

The father of Ilan Halimi, whose brutal killing captured nationwide attention spoke out Tuesday about the negotiations with his son's kidnappers.

The kidnappers "were just too happy to have a little Jew on their hands," Didier Halimi said in an interview, his first, with the French daily, Le Monde, appearing in Wednesday's edition...

...Halimi defended the police, who have come under fire from his ex-wife and two daughters, saying, "It's always easy to criticize after the fact," and that officers on the case "worked like crazy."

Critics have accused police of initially ignoring anti-Semitic motives in the crime, which captured the attention of top government officials and has revived fears of anti-Semitism in France.