On April 14, the Court of Cassation confirmed the criminal irresponsibility of the murderer of Sarah Halimi, who would have been caught at the time of the murder of an “acute delirious puff”. Back to this psychiatric pathology, at the heart of a politico-judicial debate.
- Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish woman, was murdered in April 2017, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, by her 27-year-old Muslim neighbor, Kobili Traoré.
- In the grip of delirious food, Kobili Traoré was deemed irresponsible by the Court of Cassation, which confirmed that there will be no trial for the assassination of Sarah Halimi.
- Faced with this controversial verdict, some put forward the idea of changing the legal texts on criminal immunity, the government having even announced a bill.
Based on seven psychiatric reports, the Court of Cassation ruled: there will be no trial for the murder of Sarah Halimi, because at the time of the events, the murderer Kobili Traoré, under the influence of a “acute delirious puff”, was not responsible for his actions. This decision, in a context of resurgence of anti-Semitic acts, shocked a good part of the opinion, which demonstrated Sunday April 15 a little everywhere in France.
The definition of an acute delusional puff
But what is an acute delirious puff? The acute delirious flush is characterized by the sudden appearance of an episode of delirium, and can last a few hours, a few days or a few weeks.
The affected person is not aware that he is delirious and does not show any withdrawal from his thoughts and his disjointed speech. Sensory hallucinations are common. His perception of reality is modified, the functioning of his mind is profoundly upset and his relations with the outside world are very disturbed.
Affecting more particularly adolescents and young adults, the acute delusional puff is often spectacular and must absolutely be taken care of urgently in a hospital psychiatric department.
What are the triggering factors of an acute delirious outburst?
The acute delirious outburst occurs most of the time in people who are psychologically fragile and ill-adjusted socially and/or professionally, who will suddenly decompensate with a “hallucinatory delirium”. In most cases, there is an identifiable triggering factor whose occurrence appears as “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.
Among these factors, there are emotional shocks: bereavement, professional or school failure, marital separation, accident, childbirth, overwork… But also the taking of toxins, such as alcohol, drugs (LSD, cocaine, amphetamines… .) or drugs (antidepressants, corticosteroids, antituberculosis, etc.). Thus, the assassin of Sarah Halimi developed an acute delirious puff following a heavy consumption of cannabis. It is important to specify here that taking toxic substances, like emotional shocks, are often the accelerators of a pre-existing mental pathology.“While it is true that Kobili Traoré had regularly consumed cannabis since the age of 15, it was only one contributing factor, among others, to his psychotic disorder”, explains in Le Monde one of the groups of psychiatric experts who evaluated the killer of Sarah Halimi.
What are the warning signs of an acute delirious outburst?
Before triggering, the acute delirious puff is preceded by warning signs, which are called “prodromes”. They appear 3 to 4 days before the crisis but often go unnoticed: sleep disorders, anxiety or behavioral oddities… The beginning of the delirious outburst is generally very sudden and characterized by a clear break with the previous state of the person who is compared to “a clap of thunder in a serene sky”.
“In the days preceding his acting out, Kobili Traoré was hallucinated, soliloquizing in response to imaginary voices, worried everyone, including his parents, his Malian neighbors whom he had kidnapped and who had called the police… He himself, convinced of being in danger of death, pursued by demons, had previously gone to the mosque, had consulted an exorcist, thought that his father-in-law wanted to “marabout” him, that the life assistant (of Haitian origin) of his sister applied voodoo rituals to him…”, report the experts in psychiatry in charge of evaluating the murderer of Sarah Halimi. 
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