A 28-year-old African who styled himself as a barbarian was sentenced to life in prison last night for kidnapping and torturing to death a Jewish man in a case that exposed anti-Semitism in France’s immigrant suburbs.

Youssouf Fofana, from the Ivory Coast, was the ring-leader of a gang of 27 youths who abducted Iman Halimi, 23, in 2006. The gang, from a housing estate in Bagneux, west of Paris, called themselves the “gang of barbarians”.

Fofana Fofana, who describes himself as a hardline “Salafist” Islamist, fled to Ivory Coast after the killing. He was arrested there and extradited to France. He must serve 22 years before he can apply for parole.

The two-month trial was held mainly behind closed doors at a juvenile court because some of the defendants were minors at the time of the offences. Twenty-four accomplices were sentenced. The girl who, aged 17, lured Mr Halimi to his death by inviting him on a date was sentenced to nine years. She took him to the gang who attacked him and subdued him with ether. The original plan was to extract a ransom for him.

Mr Halimi, a shop assistant, was found by a railway line 24 days later. He was naked, handcuffed to a tree and bearing the marks of torture. He died on the way to hospital. A month after the start of the trial Fofana admitted stabbing Mr Halimi and setting him alight.

The crime stirred controversy over the level of anti-Semitism in France after police at first refused to consider the kidnapping a hate crime. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated two weeks after Mr Halimi disappeared.

Samir Aït Abdelmalek, 30, and Jean-Christophe Soumbou, 23, the two main accomplices, were sentenced to 18 and 15 years. Fofana raised his fist when he entered court at the start of the trial, occasionally smirked at Mr Halmili’s relatives and threw shoes at lawyers.

Francis Szpiner, a lawyer for the Halimi family, said: “I regret the court was particularly indulgent towards those who assisted and aided Youssouf Fofana.”

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