Source: The New York Times
Wire Service: AP
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/09/world/AP-EU-France-Anti-Semitic-Attack.html?_r=2
A juvenile court judge filed preliminary charges against four French teenagers accused of attacking a Jewish girl, a judicial official said Friday, amid tensions around Europe over the fighting in Gaza.
Three of the four teenagers are accused of violence with a religious or ethnic motive, and the fourth is accused of failing to prevent a crime, the official said. The official was not authorized to be named because the investigation is ongoing.
The four defendants -- aged between 13 and 15 -- are not in custody but are under judicial supervision. Under French law, preliminary charges allow for further investigation before a magistrate determines whether to send the case to trial.
The teenagers are accused of making anti-Semitic insults toward the 14-year-old girl, pushing her to the ground and kicking her as she was leaving school in the northern Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel.