PARIS, Feb 23: A gang-leader who confessed to the kidnap, torture and murder of a young French Jewish man was flown back from Abidjan to Paris on Thursday, where President Jacques Chirac attended a memorial ceremony for the victim.

Youssouf Fofana, 25, was arrested overnight in Ivory Coast, where he fled shortly after the dying Ilan Halimi was found on February 11, and was flown back to France to face charges, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said.

“It is a given that (Fofana) will be brought back to France. It is a question of days or hours,” Sarkozy told reporters.

Ivorian police said that Fofana — a convicted petty criminal of Ivorian origin — had admitted taking part in Halimi’s kidnap and murder. But they said that ‘he denies any anti-Semitic dimension’ to the crime.

Halimi, a 23-year-old telephone shop assistant, went missing in late January after being lured into a trap by a woman.

He was held and tortured for three weeks in a poor multi-ethnic suburb of Paris by a gang that sent ransom demands to his family.

Ten days ago he was dumped beside a railway line just south of Paris city centre. Naked, bound and gagged, his body bore horrific injuries and he died on the way to hospital.

The crime struck horror in France’s 500,000-strong Jewish community, where it was widely assumed Halimi had been targeted because he was Jewish.

After initial reluctance, the French authorities earlier this week said they too believe anti-Semitism was part of the gang’s motives. On Tuesday the investigating magistrate heading the case opened the way for aggravated charges of racial hatred against gang members.

The suspected ringleader Fofana was arrested along with four others, at a roadblock in a popular Abidjan neighbourhood, following a police tip-off.

According to an Ivorian officer, he confessed to having killed Halimi and sprayed his body with acid to clear it of fingerprints, after police threatened to accuse his companions of complicity.

However, according to a French judicial source, Fofana confessed his part in Halimi’s kidnapping but not his murder.

By Thursday, a total of 13 people had been placed under judicial investigation in Paris, the latest being the concierge of the building in which Halimi was held.—AFP