French police discovered the charred body of a Holocaust survivor covered with stab wounds after a fire broke out in her Paris apartment on Friday. The local Jewish community fears the murder was motivated by anti-Semitism.
Police investigators said their working assumption was that Knoll's apartment had been set on fire intentionally.
Forensic teams worked over the weekend to gather evidence in an investigation that French government officials are following closely, due to the sensitivity of the incident.
The fire was reportedly lit at five different points in the apartment, pointing to arson.
Sources in the Jewish community said Knoll had previously complained about threats from her Muslim neighbor, saying he had even threatened to burn her.
Prominent figures in the French Jewish community say that while the incident was not widely reported as such in local media, it was undoubtedly an anti-Semitic attack. According to the French Jewish watchdog group Bureau National de Vigilance Contre l'Antisémitisme, French police have arrested and interrogated a suspect.
According to reports in the daily paper Le Parisien, the authorities have ruled out suicide, as her body had 11 stab wounds.
The bureau said in a statement that the killing is reminiscent of the April 2017 murder of 65-year-old Sarah Halimi, who was pushed out of a window to her death by her Muslim neighbor. Friday's suspected homicide occurred in the victim's apartment on Philippe-Auguste Avenue in the 11th arrondissement, not far from Halimi's home.
"For the Jews of France, the nightmare continues. While France is still reeling from trauma after the terrorist attack in Trèbes, we discover today the shocking murder last Friday of Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor," French MP Meyer Habib, who represents France's overseas constituency including in Israel, said on Sunday.
Last Friday, four people were killed in the southern French village of Trèbes after an Islamic State-affiliated terrorist took hostages in a local supermarket.
Habib said he had spoken with one of the victim's sons, David Knoll.
"Despite the terrible pain, it is important for me to stress the nobility of the man. He shared many details with me, which I of course at this stage cannot share," he said.
The rumors that Mireille Knoll was raped should be dismissed, as "this only confuses and adds to the pain of the family," Habib said.
"Just like Sarah Halimi, of blessed memory, Mireille also knew the suspect, who is now under arrest: a 35-year-old Muslim neighbor she had known since he was a boy," Habib said.
