Hoax attack ’victim’ on notice

A FRENCH woman who lied about being the victim of a vicious anti-Semitic
attack - a claim that sparked nationwide outrage - was today handed a
four-month suspended sentence for lying.

From correspondents in Cergy-Pontoise

A FRENCH woman who lied about being the victim of a vicious anti-Semitic
attack - a claim that sparked nationwide outrage - was today handed a
four-month suspended sentence for lying.

Marie-Leonie Leblanc, 23, was also given two years’ probation and
ordered to get psychiatric treatment for "reporting an imaginary crime"
after falsely telling police she had been assaulted on a suburban Paris
train on July 9.

The criminal court in Cergy-Pontoise northwest of Paris also ordered
Leblanc to pay a symbolic 1 euro ($1.71) in damages to the French
national railway SNCF.

The woman initially told police that a gang of six Arab and black youths
had slashed her clothes, cut a lock of her hair and drawn swastikas on
her stomach after mistaking her for a Jew.

She also said the youths had tipped over her baby carriage with her
13-month-old daughter inside.

But her story was quickly disproven by investigators, and Leblanc
admitted four days later that she had made up the entire incident. AFP