A 12-year-old girl has been the victim of a gang rape in what is suspected to be an anti-Semitic assault by three teenage boys in France.
The girl, from Courbevoie in the Hauts-de-Seine area northwest of Paris, informed the police that she was raped last weekend. According to Mail Online, she explained that she went to Henri Regnault Square with her boyfriend when three teenagers seized her and took her to a deserted hangar at a former nursery nearby.
One of the attackers was reportedly her 12-year-old ex-boyfriend, who accused her of hiding her Jewish background from him, as per Le Parisien. The three boys allegedly beat her and insulted her religion before raping her.
Local authorities have launched an investigation into the rape. The suspects, boys aged 12, 13, and 14 from Rueil-Malmaison in Hauts-de-Seine, were detained on Monday after a medical examination at a local hospital confirmed the rape.
The boys appeared before a judge this afternoon and reportedly confessed to the rape. The former boyfriend told the police that he was upset because she hid her Jewish identity from him and wanted to retaliate, according to Le Parisien.
Investigators allegedly discovered anti-Semitic comments and images, including a burned Israeli flag, on the boy’s phone. One of his friends reportedly told the police that he had hit the girl because she made derogatory remarks about Palestine.
The local prosecutor’s office issued a statement indicating that the boys have been charged with aggravated rape, aggravated sexual assault, attempted extortion, invasion of privacy, death threats, violence, and insults, with the latter two charges being aggravated because the attack was religiously motivated.