French police are tempering reports that anti-semitism was behind the rape of a 19 year-old Parisian woman following a home break in Monday night.
According to Le Parisien newspaper, three hooded, armed assailiants broke into a home in the Paris suburb of Créteil late Monday afternoon armed with a pistol and a sawed-off rifle.
Inside, they demanded that the woman and her partner, a 21 year-old man, give them their bank ATM cards and PIN numbers.
While one of the trio went off to withdraw money, the remaining two split the couple up, and one of the attackers raped the woman.
Police apprehended two of the attackers after they fled the scene.
According to the victims, the attackers said their home was targeted because they are Jewish.
“They came to rob everything, especially the cash,” JSS News Service quoted one of the victims as saying. “They kept asking for more money and made it about the fact that we are Jews.”
“My brother and his girlfriend had their feet and wrists bound, and their mouths taped. They were pointing at them with guns. They shouted and insulted them, and they ransacked the apartment. Everything was destroyed in every room,” a brother of the male victim told Le Parisien.
A police investigator told Le Parisian that it is “too early to know” if the victims’ Jewish faith played any part in the attack .
