FRANCE - The long and controversial shadow of the Lee Zeitouni case took a violent and final turn this week in the heart of France. Eric Robic, the 51-year-old French national whose 2011 hit-and-run killing of an Israeli woman sparked a decade-long diplomatic firestorm, was gunned down in an apparent targeted assassination on Thursday, April 16, 2026.

The shooting occurred in broad daylight in Neuilly-sur-Seine, an affluent suburb on the western edge of Paris. According to French prosecutors, Robic was riding a scooter at approximately 9:30 a.m. local time when two men on a motorized scooter pulled alongside him and opened fire. Several rounds were discharged, leaving Robic dead on the pavement as the assailants sped away into the morning traffic.

The name Eric Robic has been synonymous with a painful chapter in Franco-Israeli relations. In September 2011, Robic was behind the wheel of a speeding BMW SUV in Tel Aviv when he struck 25-year-old Pilates instructor Lee Zeitouni as she crossed the street to work.

Rather than stopping to provide aid, Robic and his passenger, Claude Khayat, fled the scene and boarded a flight to France within hours. Because France maintains a strict policy against extraditing its own citizens outside the European Union, the pair avoided trial in Israel despite immense international pressure. It was only after years of advocacy by the Zeitouni family that Robic was tried in Paris in 2014, where he was sentenced to five years in prison—a term many in Israel criticized as being far too lenient.

While the motive for the shooting remains under investigation, French authorities are focusing on Robic’s extensive history as a career criminal that lived on the fringes of the law with over a dozen convictions. His record includes a 2025 sentence for an international luxury car fraud scheme and a 2018 investigation into allegations of bribing prison officials for special treatment.

Most notably, he was linked to a massive "carbon tax" sting that defrauded the European Union of billions, suggesting his death may be tied to a life deeply embedded in the world of high-stakes organized crime.

Police are currently exploring whether the assassination was a "liquidation of accounts" related to his current involvement in organized crime or a delayed act of retribution.

In Israel, news of Robic's death was met with a somber sense of finality. Itzik Zeitouni, Lee’s father, expressed a feeling of relief that had eluded his family for fifteen years.

“I feel like justice was served today,” Zeitouni told local media. “He was my daughter’s despicable murderer who fled the scene... as far as I am concerned, a circle that cried out for justice has been closed.”

As Paris investigators search for the two gunmen, the streets of Neuilly-sur-Seine remain a crime scene—a stark end for a man whose life was defined by the lives he took and the laws he broke.