Irishman sentenced over antisemitic death threats

Australian Sharon Kuperholz says the Irishman who threatened to shoot her in a French supermarket now knows he is not untouchable, but she believes courts are still too soft on offenders.

Patrick O’Brien, 60, originally from Dublin and now living near Avignon, was convicted by the Avignon Criminal Court of attempting to justify crimes against humanity and making death threats aggravated by their antisemitic nature.

He received a six-month suspended sentence and was ordered to pay €500 each to Kuperholz and her husband Mark, and €300 each to Jewish groups CHAR (Campaign against Hate, Antisemitism, Racism) and B’nai B’rith.

Prosecutors had sought a three-year ban from French territory.

“That would have been a nice message,” Mrs Kuperholz told The AJN.

“I think that in today’s world, there’s so much mercy to perpetrators, which is actually cruelty to the victims.”

The confrontation happened at an Avignon hypermarket on August 11, when a conversation about Mark’s France football shirt turned to Ireland’s policy on Israel.

Kuperholz filmed O’Brien saying he was sorry Hitler “didn’t finish the job” before he threatened to kill her.

The clip went viral and was condemned by three senior French ministers.

Senior gendarmerie officers travelled from Marseille to Nice to interview the couple separately, and two days later police raided O’Brien’s home, seized his phone and computer, and took him into custody.

Avignon prosecutor Stephanie Aouine told the court O’Brien had admitted the facts and said he regretted his remarks, and that the seized devices held further racist material.

His defence said he was unwell and grieving his late wife, and O’Brien described himself as a “committed humanist” opposed to violence.

Kuperholz said O’Brien was a large man and she believed he meant the threat.

As the couple walked away, he picked up a cantaloupe and mimed throwing it at her head.

“Had he had a weapon, I really feel like he would have attacked us,” she said.

Kuperholz plans to donate her compensation to Beit Halochem, which supports wounded Israeli soldiers and victims of terror.

“For somebody who wished for the annihilation of the Jewish people, to know that he’s contributed to the defence of the Jewish people, I think maybe that will mean something to him,” she said.